God the Missionary

God is on a mission.  In fact, He is the ultimate missionary. The Good News – is hope for all people and we receive that hope through our personal relationship with Christ. God saves us from sin and death, but not only that He saves us for a Mission. A mission of gift giving. We are saved to continue to share with all mankind the gifts that we have received from God, to extend His gift of hope, grace, mercy & love to others.

God is a missionary. The Latin theological term “Missio Dei” actually means “sending of God”. When kept in the context of the Scriptures, Missio Dei correctly emphasizes that God is the initiator of His mission to redeem through the Church a special people for Himself from all of the peoples of the world. He sent His Son for this purpose and He sends the Church into the world with the message of the gospel for the same purpose. God is Love – God is our Hope – and was sent as Love as Hope in His son Jesus Christ, and He send us now having received this Love and Hope to share it with others. God saves us through  and  then sends us to Love.  Given the example provided by God himself and Christ His son, we are not to get caught up in the notion that people need to come to God via the church or it's buildings, but rather that God extends His hope to us, sent His Son as hope for us, and ultimately lives within us and send us out to extend that hope to others.

Here we sit as Christians the largest religion in the world. More than 1/3 of all the people on the planet profess to be Christians. Over 2 billion strong – with the power of God on our side – the hope of a Saviour and yet our world is in despair, in darkness, lost, stumbling around in the darkness looking for a glimmer of hope.

I recall sitting in a seminar  years ago, that author Michael Frost led, and at the end he shared with us this challenge to create a missional rhythm of living, a way of living that would allow us to be that glimmer of hope in the darkness. Each person would meet with two others to keep each other accountable on the following:

GENEROSITY

BLESS X3 - What 3 people or 3 ways that you have blessed someone this week -

HOSPITALITY

EAT X 3 - What 3 people did you have time to break bread with / eat with -

LISTEN X 1 - Take time to be attentive to the Holy Spirit - What did you

hear God say this week

LEARN X 1 - Take time to learn the person of Jesus -CHRIST LIKENESS

SENT - Journal ways you have done the work of God this week. - MISSIONAL

The church has always been the one called to bring life, to bring HOPE, "if we rise to the crisis’ our society faces it will be the biggest witness the world has ever seen."