OUR MISSION TO THE WORLD

As I consider in meditation the wonder of our mission to our world I can easily get very frustrated. To even start to think and pray about this always brings on a sense of vulnerability. This settles in on me as I consider the words of Jesus, “lift up your eyes and look on the fields that are already white for harvest.” I can see the fields and know that they need to be harvested, but it seems so difficult, so strained, and so impossible.

The gospel is supposed to be ‘good news.’ Because it is, we should expect it to go sweeping through the land on a wave of enthusiasm and excitement. Yet even before Jesus sent out the Twelve the first time, he prepared them for the possibility of rejection and when He sent out the Seventy, he spoke even more earnestly. They must know, he told them, that they were being sent “like sheep in the midst of wolves,” and “and hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think that he is offering worship to God.”

This promoted extreme vulnerability, then and now.
The mission of ‘bringing the good news’ was a new idea. Jesus was launching a new plan, a new kingdom, and a new message. Something very precious, on which salvation depended, was being ‘sent’ into a hostile world. It would appear that it was bound for failure and catastrophe, yet everything depended on the acceptance and spreading of the new message.

I think the missing element is we want to do this without suffering and there has never been a time when this has happened for very long historically.

“Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves.” Jesus