Jesus deliberately spent time with people that were far from God to help them find their way to God.
And He calls us to do the same.
The Christ follower is God’s missionary. Our confidence is still in Him.
My trust is not in my calling.
My trust is in the One who calls me.
I want to be on mission because my Father is on mission.
I want to be a missionary because Jesus is a missionary.
I want to be sent because I am sent.
I want to live life saying “Here I am – send me.”
Showing the love of Christ by how we live opens the door to sharing the love of Christ with our words. The gospel is both show and tell.
Being sent means I am sent to care. I am sent to love. I am sent to say by my life and my words, “You matter to me because you matter to God.”
Everyone you will ever meet is looking to be loved. They are longing to be loved. They are needing to be loved. And when we choose to love them, and to allow Jesus to love them through us, we are totally on the mission.
For too long, we have seen the good news as something we share – as something we tell. And it is that. But it is also something we do, something we are, something we become. The gospel is not just an encounter that changes our eternal destiny. The gospel changes our lives now.
Why is it that we so quickly embrace the idea that God wants to save us but so often run from the idea that He also wants to send us?
I am sent.
I am not sent to win the whole world.
But I am sent to win my corner of the world.
A true fisherman will go anywhere, at any hour of the day, using any bait that will work, in order to catch fish. He is not into fishing. He is into catching!
Jesus is not content with simply making a better you. His goal is not just to make you better at what you already do well. He wants to make you new. That includes giving you a new purpose – that you are sent, that you are on mission. And that includes giving you new training – so that you can learn how to fish for men.