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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