Day 4: Missional Life
Scripture:
In the beginning of Acts, we find a SHOOK group of disciples hunkered down in an upper room in obedience waiting on the fulfillment of what Jesus says here:
Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Wait
Receive power
Be a witness
Devotional:
About a hand full of years ago, I had a pretty bad year. It was really like the climax of a really weird life, heaped on top of brokenness and not knowing who I was. A small recipe for disaster. I mean, I didn’t know if I was loved by God or people, and I wasn’t even sure of my salvation.
I was hungry, thirsty, I was tired, and I needed help. If you would have asked me what biblical character I resonated with, I would have told you “Mary Magdeline. Pre deliverance.”
I accidentally stumbled into this Charismatic Episcopal church in Alabama, sat in the back row, intrigued and somewhat weirded out as the priests swung incense around and blessed the sacraments with a liturgy, then in tongues. But I didn’t care. I needed God. I needed deliverance. I needed all sorts of healing.
During the service, some folks ministering there gave me a prophetic word about the Lord putting new soles on my feet so I could run without growing weary, and a word about Him being moved by my desperation, waiting, and wonder. I truly felt seen, in a good way, which is often the fruit of receiving a prophetic word. So, at the end, I went down to the altar to take communion and to ask for prayer. When the priest came up to me and asked how he could pray for me, I totally bluffed and asked for physical healing for a lymph node in my neck. I couldn’t just let people know I was holding my own life together by sun rotted scotch tape.
And then the unthinkable happened- THE LYMPH NODE WAS HEALED.
The priest asked gently but suspiciously if I needed anything else prayed for, and seeing that Jesus DID heal, I jumped on the opportunity like duck on a June bug and attempted to describe how awful my life had been up until that point. He looked at me kindly and simply said “you need new wind.”
New wind.
I had no idea what he was talking about but I was there for it, so I did what he told me. Kneeling at that altar, he asked me to put my hands in the air, he said “receive the Holy Spirit” then breathed on my face, and I was out like a light. I was filled and slain in the Spirit and it was like open heart surgery. I don’t know what happened to me, but from that moment on, it was like I went from a 110 outlet to a 220.
There was a quickening, a gentle power that rested on me and postured me to be reconciled to myself, to others, and to God. I wanted all wrongs around me and in me to be made right and to please the heart of Jesus. I’ve been on that journey ever since. It has led me into some real wildernesses, desserts, and sometimes mountain tops. But nonetheless, I was sent. I would experience God heal me, or heal someone else. Passages in the Bible just made sense like they never had before, and the Triune God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) became real to me, because I was awakened. It was like my spiritual antenna was up and I had a better sense of God's activity.
I had to witness because I had encountered. I had seen. I had tasted.
You know, often times we’re terrified to bring God up in mixed company because we carry the yoke of a lawyer, when Jesus only ever asked us to be witnesses. And that yoke is easy. That burden is light. To be sent to bear witness is the essence of the heart of mission. And we can really be sent anywhere, from Southeast Asia, to the Marathon gas station down the street, to our neighbor. You know, witnessing isn’t always verbal or overt, often it’s really living quietly and prophetically from your identity in Christ and witnessing covertly. Living a life that is salty and makes people thirst for the living water you’re drinking.
Its encountering God's deep compassionate heart, witnessing to that very heart, partnering with God in seeking and saving the lost, freeing from the reign of sin and Satan, and advocating for the shalom of God to rest where it currently does not.
Unctioned by the Spirit.
But here’s the deal, we need something to witness about, we need to be touched, we need to encounter the living God. Isn’t that the narrative of the Bible? It is from start to finish a missionary book. It’s is the story of God himself reaching into human history to reconcile a fallen and rebellious humanity to himself and to reestablish his reign over all creation. And then people witness to other folks about this is like beggars telling other beggars where to find bread.
Mission can be defined as the sending activity of God with the purpose of reconciling to Himself and bringing into His kingdom fallen men and women from every people, nation, and tongue.
God is the God who sends. We are made in the image of not just God the Father, but the Triune God. God the Father who SENT the Son, the Son who SENT the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit who SENDS the church into the world, to walk in power and be a witness to the God whose image we bear. Because of this, woven into the very fibers of who we are, is mission.
Here is some encouragement to end on: Mission is God’s endeavor. Our mission as the church is to participate in His mission. Mission has never been ours. Drawing from that, God does not necessarily “use us” like convenient but disposable tools to accomplish his true agenda. Rather, He invites us to join Him in what he is already doing around the world and in our own neighborhoods.
Talk about taking a load off! We are just joining the one who’s ministry it is.
Waiting.
Empowered.
Witnessing.
Prayer: God, breathe new wind on me today. On every place that I’m tired. Every place I’m apathetic. Every place I’m skeptical. Every place I’m wounded.
God, what are you up to and how can I join you? Give me eyes to see. Who can I tell your story to today?
