Category Archives: John

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Looking Forward!

Being With Jesus:
John 16:16,22-24

Jesus said, “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me. …Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.”

People who have followed Jesus throughout the ages did something that Christians don’t do as much in our day: They thought a lot about heaven.

They were right to do so. Perhaps they had a more balanced theology than we do, possibly their spiritual leaders taught more often on the future world than ours do, or it could be that since life for so hard and following Christ came at such a high price looking forward to eternity was simply the natural thing to do. Maybe it was all of the above.

Whatever the case, heaven was on their minds. Not so much for us. Earth has become so good to us that we almost see the approach of eternity as a rude interruption to our pursuit of the good life in this present world. Some believers almost think and act as if heaven is a cheap substitute for Planet Earth. It is not. It is our true home, our Divine destiny purchased by the blood of Jesus when he died on the cross, the place where our full potential will be perpetually, increasingly, uninterruptedly released as we rule and reign with Christ. As the old timers used to sing,

“This world is not my home I’m just a-passin’ through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue. The angels beckon me from heaven’s open door. And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.”

We would do well to practice dwelling on our eternal dwelling more. Doing so is not wishful thinking, or pain avoidance, or escapism. It is what Jesus instructed his disciples, and by extension, you and me, to do. The fact was, Jesus was going to leave—and at first, it would be a pretty painful leaving. He would die on the cross, according to God’s eternal plan. Then he would ascend back to his Father. In his absence, he would send the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, who would be with the disciples, and in them continually. The Spirit would constantly abide with them, empower them for Christian living and witness, would lead them into truth and reveal the deeper things of God to them. Even still, life would be tough for them because they followed Jesus—they would be persecuted, rejected and killed for their faith. But one of the things Jesus said they needed to do to endure the hardships of this life and thrive in the midst of pain was to dwell on the good things to come.

What are those good things to come? For starters, there will be fullness of joy. The grief of the present will turn to joy (John 16:22), and the joy will be so great in heaven that the grief of the past will pale by comparison until it fades into oblivion. Pain, disappointment and heartache will be forgotten and joy would be their new reality—for all eternity.  Furthermore, there will be fullness of life. (John 16:23a) Christ’s disciples will not even need to ask him for anything; they will already have everything. And finally, there will be fullness of relationship. (John 16:23b) The disciples will be able to go directly to God for anything they want because of what Jesus has accomplished. We will no longer wrestle with the image of God being a distant, immovable, uncaring deity in a galaxy far, far away; he will be up close and quite personal.

Imagine HeavenJesus seems to be saying that we should continually keep those future realities in our present thoughts as we face the harsh conditions of our current lives. And, by what he then says in verse 24, by practicing this type of “heaven-thinking” now, we will be so filled with confident assurance that asking for what we want and need right now in this present world will be our faith response to whatever comes our way:

“Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.” (John 16:24)

Looking forward to your eternal future on a regular basis is one of the best things you could do for your faith. In one of his letters, C.S. Lewis wrote, “Good and evil when they attain their full stature are retrospective. That is why, at the end of all things, the damned will say we were always in Hell, and the blessed we have never lived anywhere but in heaven.”

Why not go ahead and imagine your future home right now, because when you finally get there, you will realize that Jesus made sure it was always pretty close.

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“A continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do.” (C.S. Lewis)

 

Getting To Know Jesus: Carve out some time and schedule a place where you can be alone with God this week—perhaps even today. Take your Bible and open it to the very last book and chapter of the Bible, Revelation 22. Slowly and gratefully read it and let that picture of your future reality invade your present world.

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Abide!

Being With Jesus:
John 15:5

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

As a society, we are busier than ever—and with that, we have much less capacity to experience and enjoy what’s most important in life. Cardiologist Meyer Friedman, a respected authority on the Type-A personality, says that modern America suffers from what he calls hurry sickness. We might define hurry sickness as the relentless drive to do more, have more and be more in less and less time.

That is nothing new; it has been the steady march of fallen humanity asserting independence from God. Even 200 years ago, Soren Kierkegaard said, “The press of busyness is like a charm. Its power swells … it reaches out, seeking always to lay hold of ever-younger victims so that childhood or youth are scarcely allowed the quiet and the retirement in which the Eternal may unfold a divine growth.”

Even believers have fallen pray to uncontrolled, purposeless. We have elevated intensity of living over intimacy with God and predictably, that is stunting the fruit-bearing, joy-filled, abundant life described here in John 15 that Jesus died to provide—and which is the most compelling witness, arguably, to a hurried, stressed-out world that desperately needs the Christ-follower to be an oasis of unforced centeredness in a sea of chaos.

Abiding & Fruit-bearingAs believers, we have been called to abide. And Jesus, who perfectly balanced the relentless demands of people and mission with quietness and solitude, is a great mentor for us. He knew how to make space in his life for what was most important in life: abiding with his Father. Mark 6:31-32 is a great example of how Jesus practiced abiding in his Father:

“Because so many people were coming and going that Jesus and his disciples didn’t even have time to eat, he said to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.’ So they left in a boat to a solitary place.”

Now we are not told what they did when they got there. They may have enjoyed a season of prayer. Maybe Jesus led them in a devotional. Perhaps they took a nap, or had a potluck, or played tag—all legitimate activities when you are with Jesus. We don’t know for sure, but we do know they did this:

  • They ceased their normal activity
  • They retreated from the demands of people
  • They set aside a specific time and place for quiet
  • They were with Jesus in an undivided way.

And that experience of abiding resulted in rest. Now that same practice of abiding will work for us too:

Pausing from our normal routine; scheduling a time and place for solitude and reflection; giving full and unfettered access into our lives to Jesus. That’s a simple but sure template for abiding in Christ if you’re looking for one.

Without a regular and fiercely guarded time for abiding in Christ, life will constantly remind you that this world demands your blood, sweat and tears. But by abiding in Christ, you will be reminded that your eternal soul belongs to Someone and someplace else.

In John 15:4, Jesus says, “Abide in me, as I abide in you.” That is not only a command, it is an invitation that requires a choice on your part. Jesus invites you to come away with him from the busyness of life and the bondage of hurriedness for a satisfying renewal of your soul. “Come with me” Jesus says, “to a quiet place and get some rest.” (Mark 6:31)

Will you? If you want to really live the fruit-bearing, God-honoring, joyful life Jesus came to give you, you have to make the choice to abide.

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“It is the responsibility of every believer to carve out a satisfying life under the loving rule of God, or sin will start to look good!”   (Dallas Willard)

 

Getting To Know Jesus: Most of your life you are required to “wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth” (Abraham Heschel), but Jesus calls us to carve out a regular time where we get away with him just to abide. Do that today…and everyday this week. And while you are with him, simply reflect on who you are and to Whom you belong and why he put you on this earth. And in those moments, gratefully remember intimacy with him is greater than anything else in life!

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Receiving Revelation

Being With Jesus:
14:22-24

Judas (not Judas Iscariot, but his other disciple with that name) said to him, “Sir, why are you going to reveal yourself only to us disciples and not to the world at large?” Jesus replied, “Because I will only reveal myself to those who love me and obey me. The Father will love them too, and we will come to them and live with them. Anyone who doesn’t obey me doesn’t love me. And remember, I am not making up this answer to your question! It is the answer given by the Father who sent me.

Why do some people seem to get more insider information about God than others? I’m not talking about those who claim to have special revelation but within seconds of being with them you realize they only have half of that equation—for sure, they are “special” but they have zero revelation! No, the kind of people I am speaking of have greater insight into Scripture, get more profound insights out of their daily devotions, display a special connection to the Holy Spirit and day by day seem to grow more profoundly, deeply connected with God than the average believer.

Does God love them more than others? No, but for a select few of these types, it may be that God has sovereignly selected them to reveal himself more clearly for the purpose of ministering to others the deeper things of the Lord. Is it because they are spiritually smarter than the rest of us? Probably not. Do they have more faith than you and me? I doubt it.

It Takes FatihSo what is it? My sense is that except in special cases where God has uniquely marked certain individuals for a greater download of divine information, those with deeper revelation have simply and consistently exercised their faith more than the rest of us. The exercise of their faith has been met with greater revelation. It is as St. Augustine said: “Faith is to believe what we do not see, and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.” The surest way to a greater faith—which, remember, is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, according to Hebrews 11:1—which leads to a closer relationship with God and greater revelation of who God is, is to exercise the faith that we have.

That seems to be Jesus’s answer to Judas, who asked the Lord, “why don’t you just go ahead and prove yourself to the whole world? Wouldn’t that make things a lot easier for you?” It almost seems as if Jesus sidesteps that question when he begins to talk about love and obedience: “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:23). But what Jesus is getting at is that deeper revelation comes by way of our receptivity, and receptivity is conditioned by our love, and our love is displayed by our obedience to Jesus’ commands, and our obedience comes from the exercise of our faith. If we don’t exercise faith, revelation would be wasted. Thomas Aquinas, a brilliant church leader in the thirteenth century, made this profound observation: “To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.” So why would God waste revelation on someone who has been unwilling to exercise faith?

But when we exercise faith, our faith grows. As our faith grows, greater love flows from us toward God. And as love flourishes, obedience becomes our willing offering of response to God. It is our growing faith, flowing love and willing obedience that acts as our invitation for God to make his home in us. And when God talks up residence in our lives, deeper insight, special revelation and spiritual familiarity will come to characterize our relationship with God.

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“Faith fills a man with love for the beauty of its truth, with faith in the truth of its beauty.” (Frances, de Sales)

Getting To Know Jesus: Do you desire greater revelation of God? Are you willing to exercise your faith? Are you ready to love God more and obey him with greater willingness? Think about the following challenge from Martin Luther: “What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and the work flow.”

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The Blessed Distress

Being With Jesus:
John 13:21

Now Jesus was in great anguish of spirit and exclaimed, “Yes, it is true—one of you will betray me.”

I have always had an easier time accepting Jesus’ divinity than his humanity. I suppose that’s because I tend to think of human emotions—anxiety, disappointment, temptation, fear—as flaws and weaknesses. How could the Son of God be flawed or weak? No way; not my Messiah! Jesus in “great anguish”! How could this be?

Jesus was God, so he knew all things in advance. He knew what he would face, but he also knew the outcome was pre-set, so there would be nothing but victory and glory for him at the end of the day. Even though he would allow hurtful and harmful things to happen to him in his assignment as the world’s redeemer, he had power over those things; he would turn them toward his Father’s ultimate purpose. How then, would he ever be upset, feel overwhelmed, and weep over things that didn’t go his way.

Yet over and again in the Gospels we see Jesus expressing a variety of emotions that we mistakenly attribute to humans only: tiredness, hunger, anger, grief, disappointment, distress. The truth is, those emotions are resident in the Creator, and we, made in his image, simply are able to feel and experience what he felt and experienced, too. We feel because God feels. In fact, the writer of Hebrews tells us that not only does he feel what we feel, we ought to be supremely grateful for that since that makes him our empathetic High Priest:

Jesus' Anguish“But Jesus the Son of God is our great High Priest who has gone to heaven itself to help us; therefore let us never stop trusting him. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses since he had the same temptations we do, though he never once gave way to them and sinned. So let us come boldly to the very throne of God and stay there to receive his mercy and to find grace to help us in our times of need.” (Hebrews 4:14-16)

In the case of his betrayal, knowing in advance that Judas would hand him over, for a price, to the Jews, having deliberately selected him with that knowledge in advance, Jesus was still distraught as he announced to his disciples that one of them would stab him in the back. And his distress was not hidden behind a stiff upper lip. The disciples were very aware that Jesus was terribly upset, so much so that Peter tried to counteract these messianic emotions with some bravado of his own: “Don’t worry Lord, I’ll be with you through thick and thin!”

Many times during my two daughters’ growing up years, they would come to me for comfort when they had experienced fear, frustration, disappointment and/or hurt in their lives. And being a little thick-headed father (I know, that’s a bit redundant), it took me a while to realize that they didn’t always want me to fix their problems, they simply wanted me to listen to their upset and offer an emotional response that assured them I identified with their hurt. They wanted me to “feel their pain.” They wanted, and needed, an empathetic father. To be sure, they sometimes needed me to fix things; but most of the time they just needed to know that I cared. Here’s the thing: They didn’t care how much I knew, they needed to know how much I cared.

The fact that Jesus cared so much about Judas’ betrayal—even though he knew in advance it would happen and that God would leverage it for his eternal plan—proved to his disciples that he cared for them, too. They knew how much he cared, and that made him a perfect, empathetic High Priest they could come to for anything they were facing.

What a drag it would be to serve an uncaring, unfeeling Messiah. Thankfully, that is not the Messiah you serve. Jesus was distressed—but what a blessed distress! It proves that even as one who is fully God, he is still perfectly capable of feeling emotions for you, too.

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“When all is said and done, people may admire how much you know, how well versed you are in your field (doctor, mechanic, lawyer, engineer, community leader, etc.), but they will remember you for the ages for how much you cared for them… When [they] know how much you care, you have begun building the foundations of trust-based relationships.” (John Maxwell)

 

Getting To Know Jesus: Where are you hurting today? Boldly—with unmitigated fear, anger or hurt, if necessary—go to Jesus and pour out your heart to him. He cares! And he knows what to do for you too!

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The Divine Leverage of Willful Unbelief

Being With Jesus:
John 12:40

“God has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts so that they can neither see nor understand nor turn to me to heal them.”

John 12 is a pivot point in this Gospel that marks Jesus’ last public movements before his arrest, crucifixion and post-resurrection appearances. It is one of the most stunning accounts you will find in Scripture because of the unbelief of the characters in this chapter.

Jesus has just performed the greatest miracle you could ever hope for: the raising of Lazarus from the tomb four days after he had died. Yet the reaction of Judas, the priests and the Pharisees, respectively, to this outstanding miracle is flat-out rejection of Jesus’ deity, if not blind hatred. This unbelief is stunning, given the fact that the now-resurrected Lazarus is standing before their very eyes.

Fortunately, this story is more than the sad history of the Jewish establishment’s reject of Jesus. As is always the case with Scripture, there are some valuable lessons we can learn from this about the willful unbelief of man and the unstoppable purposes of God.

The first lesson we learn is that miracles alone will never lead people to the full surrender of their lives to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. People often demand a miracle before they will place faith in Christ, but the record of the Gospels indicates that miracles alone won’t wash away willful unbelief. They should—but they don’t. Time and again, Jesus performed a miracle, only to have people turn around and in the very next moment demand not another sign, but a sign—as if the one he had just given hadn’t been given at all. Such is the utter blindness of illogical unbelief. Beware, the next time you find yourself insisting that God grant you your miracle.

The second lesson we learn is that the motives of sinful man will always irreconcilably conflict with the purposes of a holy God. When man’s agenda collides with God’s agenda—and it always does, sooner or later—something’s gotta give. The Jewish leaders were more interested in protecting their religious and political way of life than in discovering the life of abundance that the Messiah had come to reveal, and in this case, unbelievably, man killed his Creator! Keep in mind that early and often in your voyage of faith you will be called to untether from the shores of comfort.

But the third lesson we learn here is that even the inflexible unbelief of man always gets leveraged for the irrepressible glory of God. That is why Jesus quotes Isaiah in John 12:40, “God has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts—so they can’t see, can’t understand, can’t turn to me and have me heal them.”

Now this is one of the Bible’s hard sayings that seems to say God destines some people to unbelief. But understand that Isaiah’s complaint springs from the broken heart of a prophet who is bewildered that his message, his calls to repentance, made men worse, not better. Yet in their painful and willful rejection of the word of the Lord, Isaiah knew that even this could not take place outside God’s purpose nor thwart his unstoppable plan. Nothing can—which means we best get on board with God’s agenda. So in that sense, even when men rejected Isaiah’s message, their unbelief was still contained within God’s purpose.

That is not to say that man’s unbelief is God’s purpose; rather, it is to say that God sovereignly uses even man’s unbelief for his sovereign purpose. For instance, in Romans 11 the Apostle Paul said that God used the unbelief of the Jews for the conversion of the Gentiles. God didn’t predestine certain people to unbelief, but he used their unbelief to further his agenda. In John 12, the Jews’ unbelief isn’t God’s fault; it’s the Jews’ fault. Yet even then, God is so great that not even this sin of stunning unbelief is outside his power, so he leverages it to bring about the cross and the redemption of all who believe.

Now if all this is theologically true, what does it mean for you practically? Simply this: God will leverage man’s unbelief for his ultimate glory—even yours. But you have a choice. You can either stubbornly hold on to your unbelief—that is, where your agenda conflicts with God’s—or you can surrender it to Jesus so that you can get on board with God’s glorious plan.

What is your area of unbelief; the place where you are holding on to your agenda? Have you ever withheld money from missional work because it was dedicated to something that you “needed” to do?

Have you ever held back from an appeal to serve in your spiritual community because you felt unqualified or too busy or frankly just didn’t want to make the commitment? Have you ever criticized change in the church the pastor felt necessary to reach more outsiders because it conflicted with your comfort and your preferred style of worship. There are a hundred ways we hold on to our unbelief—with spiritual justification—but here’s what Jesus said in John 12:24-25 about letting go of your agenda for God’s:

“Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it’s never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it’s buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is, destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal.”

unbeliefIf you hold on to what you want, you’ll kill any chance of what God wants for you! To experience the resurrected life—not just in eternity, but now—you have to die to your unbelief.

Before you finish this post, I would implore you to determine that your agenda, your unbelief, will no longer control you.

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“Disobedience is the root of unbelief. Unbelief is the mother of further disobedience. Faith is voluntary submission within a person’s own power. If faith is not exercised, the true cause lies deeper than all intellectual reasons. It lies in the moral aversion of human will and in the pride of independence, which says, ‘who is Lord over us? Why should we have to depend on Jesus Christ?’ As faith is obedience and submission, so faith breeds obedience, but unbelief leads on to higher-handed rebellion. With dreadful reciprocity of influence, the less one trusts, the more he disobeys; the more he disobeys, the less he trusts.” (Alexander Maclaren)

 

Getting To Know Jesus: Where are you stubbornly holding on to your own spiritual agenda—and thus, expressing willful unbelief? Ask God to reveal to you where you need to surrender your preferences to his ways. Then be ready to ruthlessly obey him.

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I Surrender All—Really?

Being With Jesus:
John 11:4

But when Jesus heard about [Lazarus’ deathly illness] he said, “The purpose of his illness is not death, but for the glory of God. I, the Son of God, will recleive glory from this situation.”

When I was a kid, there was a Gospel chorus that my little country church regularly sang. In fact, to my recollection, we sang that song most every time we gathered for a service—Sunday morning, Sunday night and for Wednesday evening Bible study. It was called, “I Surrender All.” I can still hear the melody and feel the emotions that went with it as we belted out our commitment to the Lord.

Though it is currently not used too much, once in a while it gets dusted off and sung in churches today when attenders are being urged to some sort of higher commitment. The words go like this:

All to Jesus I surrender,
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live.

I surrender all,
I surrender all.
All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.

I surrender all! Really? Here’s the question I have for you: How committed are you that God’s glory would be displayed in your life through by whatever means, even unpleasant events? How surrendered are you—not willing to be surrendered, but actually are surrendered—to God’s purpose being worked out through all of your circumstances, especially the painfull ones? I’m not sure how you will answer that, but I know that when I honestly consider the implications of total surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in my life—not in theory, but right now, in the gritty reality of my current world—I have to nervously gulp a little bit.

You see, to be truthful, although I say I am surrendered to God’s glory and totally committed to his divine plan for me, I have some expectations about how I want him to work that out. I have some investments I’ve made, some relationships I cherish, some possessions I like, and some plans that I want him to protect and prosper. I want unchallenged, guaranteed wins in my life. No bumps in the road, please!

Of course, you and I realize that God doesn’t operate that way. Sometimes he allows challenges, losses and bumps; sometimes even the death of an investment, a dream or even a loved one. Don’t like my theology on that? Just talk to Mary and Martha; they’ll set you straight. They discovered here in John 11 when their brother was on his deathbed that Jesus doesn’t always operate according to our timeline. He can’t be rushed, coerced, manipulated or diverted down our preferred path when he knows there is a better road leading to the glory of God that we must trod.

The truth of the matter is, Jesus is committed to the glory of God—period. And he knows that the greatest glory comes to God when people place total trust in him through unconditional belief. Furthermore, he knows that the greatest and strongest trust is developed in the toughest trials of life. That is why he told his disciples that he was going to let Lazarus’ illness end in death so that he could raise him up so that they could believe in him so that God would be glorified:

“Our friend Lazarus has gone to sleep, but now I will go and waken him!” The disciples, thinking Jesus meant Lazarus was having a good night’s rest, said, “That means he is getting better!” But Jesus meant Lazarus had died. Then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. And for your sake, I am glad I wasn’t there, for this will give you another opportunity to believe in me.” (John 11:11-15)

In his book, Place of Immunity, Francis Frangipane wrote that God made the Old Testament Joseph fruitful in the very things that afflicted him. He goes on to say that “in the land of your affliction, in your battle, is the place where God will make you fruitful. Consider, even now, the area of greatest affliction in your life. In that area, God will make you fruitful in such a way that your heart will be fully satisfied, and God’s heart fully glorified. God has not promised to keep us from valleys and sufferings, but to make us fruitful in them.”

SurrenderThat is a great truth, my friend. In the place of your affliction, not only will God make you fruitful—and I would add, he can’t make you fruitful apart from the painful pruning that takes place there—and not only will he fully satisfy your heart, but he will fully glorify God’s heart. And for our sake, I am glad that is what he does!

That is why you and I should willingly and joyfully say, “I surrender all—really!”

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“Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation.” (Elton Trueblood)

 

Getting To Know Jesus: As an affirmation of your complete trust in Jesus’ Lordship over you, sing the chorus, “I Surrender All.” If you don’t know it, find it on the Internet and listen to it. Then ask the Lord to give you the grace, courage and resolve to live like you believe it.

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Making Jesus Famous

Being With Jesus:
John 10:16

“I lay down my life for the sheep. But I have other sheep that are not of this fold; I must bring them [in] also, and they will listen to my voice. Then there will one flock and one shepherd.”

The more I learn about Jesus, the more intensely missionary I become. That’s because Jesus was intensely missionary. He was a missionary Messiah!

You cannot read too far into the Gospels without discovering that Jesus fervently cared for the things his Father cared for—his sheep, especially sheep that were not yet eternally secure in the Father’s fold. In John 10:1-15, using very tender pastoral language, Jesus describes himself as the Good Shepherd who cares for the sheep of his flock—leading, protecting, feeding and loving them. Really, what Jesus is describing is the ministry of the local church.

But in verse 16, he speaks of sheep not in this fold: “I lay down my life for the sheep. But I have other sheep that are not of this fold; I must bring them [in] also, and they will listen to my voice. Then there will one flock and one shepherd.”

Clearly, Jesus is speaking of those yet to come into the flock of God. He is referring to what we have come to call the ministry of global missions—reaching those who have not yet heard of the saving grace of Jesus Christ.  Throughout the Gospels, there is a constant sense of Jesus’ intensely missionary heart for these “pre-believing” sheep. And if for no other reason, because of the Good Shepherd’s passionate love for his sheep and his relentless pursuit to bring them into the safety of the fold—especially those yet reached, we, too, must become intensely missionary.

Theologian John Stott reminds us that, “Missions is the central feature of God’s historical purpose.” It’s true. That’s why Jesus was born…that’s why he died…that’s why he’s coming again! That’s why missions must be our central focus too! If you and I are to truly follow Christ as a devoted disciple, become like him, thinking as he thought, acting as he acted, then we must embrace this foundational conviction: Lost people must matter to us because they matter to God. Matthew 18:12-14 reminds us that this conviction is at the very core of God’s being:

“If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one wanders off, won’t he leave the ninety-nine and go look for the one that’s lost? And if he finds it, he’s happier over the one than the ninety-nine that didn’t wander off. So also your Heavenly Father is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.”

If lost people matter that deeply to God, shouldn’t they matter that deeply to us too? You can never look into the eyes of a lost person without seeing an eternal soul so loved by God that he gave his only Son for their redemption. It doesn’t matter who they are, where they live, what they have done; they matter to God!

In light of that, here is another inescapable conviction that we must embrace if we are to be fully devoted disciples of Jesus: reaching unreached people, both near but especially far—not just geographically, but theologically—must be a driving passion. Why do I say that? Because you can’t read the Bible without sensing “stay and share” must quickly morph into “go and tell.”

What I mean by that is that it is simply counter to God’s heart that there remain those who have never even heard the Gospel once when we pour so much into those who hear it over and over yet continue to reject it. Do you realize there is a disproportionate amount of resources, financial and human, that is poured into reaching those who have already heard the Gospel while there are still thousands of people groups—Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, animists—without access to a gospel-preaching witness in their culture. That must sadden the Father’s heart.

Jesus commanded us in Mark 16:15, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.” In Acts 1:8 he promised the Holy Spirit would enable our witnesses, “to the uttermost parts of earth.” In Matthew 24:14, he said, “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”

Why I Exist“I have but one passion: It is He, it is He alone. The world is the field and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ.” (Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf)

It’s clear that God puts the highest premium on taking the Gospel to people who’ve never heard. In Isaiah 66:19, God promised to send messengers to “…lands beyond the sea that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory.” That’s why the church exists; that is the purpose of every believer. Romans 9:17 says, “I raised you up for this very purpose: to display my power in you so that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” David prayed in Psalm 67:2, “Send us around the world with the news of your saving power and your eternal plan for all mankind.”(LB)

Are you seeing what I am seeing? God’s chief concern is that his name be known and praised by all the peoples of the earth. That’s why Isaiah 12:4 says we’re to, “make known his deeds among the peoples and proclaim that his name is exalted.” When we proclaim his fame, we delight the heart of God. And when we do, God delights to satisfy our hearts.

Proclaiming his fame, especially to those who have never heard—that is our assignment. You might say that the greatest use of your redeemed life is making Jesus famous. Are you?

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“The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions. The nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become.” (Henry Martyn)

 

Getting To Know Jesus: God is most glorified in us when we’re most satisfied in him—and we’re most satisfied in him when we’re proclaiming his glory and his fame. Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord and he’ll give you the desires of your heart.” We can have it all—success, significance, and most of all, satisfaction—if we will get addicted to making Jesus famous among the unreached. What can you do today to make Jesus famous?