On Mission

How hard is it for you to stay on mission? When you have a task that you know must be accomplished, are you the type of person who, once you have started, does not stop until every aspect of the job is complete? Or are you a great starter and not so much of a finisher? It seems that the culture we are living in is making it more difficult to be a finisher. We have scads of information at our fingertips and a how-to video for everything possible on YouTube, all of which causes us to be more distracted than ever and seems to make it more difficult to stay on task.
Lately I have been thinking about the mission that we are called to as Christ followers. It is spelled out for us in a number of places throughout the New Testament, but for today let’s think about the description of the mission found in 2 Corinthians. “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf, ‘Be reconciled to God.'” Now remember every time we see the word therefore, we must know why it is there. In this case the word therefore is referring to the fact that we are new creations in Christ, and because we have been made new in Christ our responsibility and life mission have changed. Instead of focusing on our own selfish desires and looking out for ourselves we are now called to represent Jesus Christ. We are to speak for Him, our actions and words are to point people to Him. The word used in this verse is ambassador. An ambassador is a person who represents someone else’s interests and desires. They are the voice and eyes of their boss. The verse goes on to tell us our mission as Gods spokesperson is to call people back to God. Really quite a simple mission, yet we seem to confuse it with many other missions.
How well are you doing as an ambassador of Christ?

-Pastor Tim