Wednesday, March 20, 2019

The Mission – Part 1



It's difficult for people to decide what they really want. What's your passion in life? What makes it worthwhile to jump out of bed each morning? When your prayer is, "God, give me the passion to do your will," God will break your heart for what breaks His. When you ask God for a passion, then He will work with you, in you and through you to will and to do of His good pleasure.

According to Romans 1, Paul knew his mission and his one purpose in life. He began this book by calling himself a "bondservant" of his Lord Jesus Christ. Paul had a dramatic "conversion experience" on the road to Damascus while he was traveling to persecute Christians. He was a devout Pharisee who wanted to stamp out Christianity. Jesus said of the Pharisees that they were "whitewashed sepulchers, tombstones that look pretty on the outside but have dead bones on the inside.” Jesus reserved his harshest criticism for the Pharisees. On the road to Damascus Saul heard a voice from heaven that said, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" He was called by the Lord Jesus to serve a new master.

A bond servant serves his master voluntarily from a heart of love. Most slaves serve because they "have to", not because they "want to." In biblical times, slaves were required by law to serve their masters because of a legal obligation for a certain period of time. Most slaves couldn't wait to be freed from the bondage of their hard task masters. However, a bond slave is one who had paid his debt of service to his master. He returned to his master to plead for his master to allow him to continue to serve, not because of obligation but voluntarily from a heart of love. To mark his bondservant, the master put black ink on his servant's ear and pierced his ear to the doorpost. This indelible mark told the world that the bondservant was bound by love to voluntarily serve his master from a heart of love for life.

Before Jesus ascended into heaven, he told his disciples, "Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations ... and I will be with you even unto the end the world." This "great commission" is the calling of men and women of God. We are called to deliver the message of the good news of God's salvation through Jesus Christ.  

The call of God to the Apostle Paul was to preach the gospel. The gospel consists of bad news and good news. The bad news is that "there is none righteous, no not one for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” According to Hebrews 9:27, It is appointed once for all men to die and then comes the judgment.  Most men and women will reject the message that "sin" is the nature of all mankind. However, the massage of salvation is not whether we sin, but whether we accept the Savior from sin. Those who are committed to share the gospel know that they are not perfect, just forgiven. Not because of our own righteousness but because of His righteousness.

Let's continue Michael"s message on our Mission in the next post.
In Christ, Brian

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