We are a missional people, who serve a missional God. Ours is a vast, overarching purpose, and that purpose is the glory and praise of God.
I get it.
I say "True, and true again."
But I've seen a bit of Gentile legalism creep into the missions mindset. When we veer away from God's heart of grace, even a little bit, we end up far away from the goal in the end. When a missions mindset is birthed from being love-sick, it is powerful. But when it becomes a measuring device with which to rate a church's or believer's quality of devotion, we've slipped into a works mentality that is anti-mission, anti-gospel, and anti-grace.
Missional is forever personal. Every concept you and I carry about our God has to be properly rooted in Genesis - every thought about God and what we imagine His "purposes" to be, must begin with God Himself. God could have created an army with which to accomplish heavenly work, but no. He created one man and one woman, to whom He gave unearned dominion, and with whom He simply would walk and talk in the cool of the day. And He still is lavishing unearned favor to sons and daughters that He simply wants to walk and talk with.
If I make the gospel as personal as God makes it, I am going to sound...maybe...just a little bit...."man centered". Does that mean the gospel I have come to believe is man centered? Not in the least. I will go so far as to say that if I have not made the gospel intensely personal, if I do not bask in the love of God for me personally - me, Sheila Atchley - I will ultimately be a hindrance to the mission.
And I will ultimately be a pain in the behind of my brothers and sisters in Christ, and a sharp ache in the neck of my leadership in my church. Because I will have made it all about "mission" instead of Presence. King David was a man after God's own heart, not because he focused on some big-mission-picture, but rather because all he really wanted, was to be in the presence of God 24/7...so much so, he put the ark in his back yard.
Christ didn't die for a mission. He died for a people. The people He died for, are made up of individuals. Christ paid the ultimate price, for you and for me, and that is forever the Gospel.
Bottom line, I will never...ever...be able to give to you what I don't own for myself. I'd love to give you a lake house and a brand new SUV, but I don't own any of those things.
The gospel of God is all about the unbalanced, crazy, mighty, unending grace of God in the face of Jesus Christ. I have to own that for myself to be able to give that away.
I have to be in the presence of God, up close and very very personal, to have the fragrance of Christ all over me. I have to carry something of the manifest presence to be of any effect whatsoever. Who are we, to think for a moment, that anything of any lasting value can be accomplished apart from the supernatural presence of God? There is no mission without utter, naked intimacy. There are no children, there is no heritage, no reproduction without intimate presence.
One thing have I desired of the Lord, and that alone will I seek after. Not to be a heavy hitter in some divine Mission Impossible, but rather to be Song of Songs intimate with the God who loves me.
Me. Me, me, me. You heard me. I said the "m" word. Oh, how He loves me! He is jealous for me...
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