Mission Field - Me

Matthew 23:15, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.”

One of my daughters was telling me the other day about her experience in what she labeled as gaining spiritual sight. It excites me to see her penetrating the kingdom of God a little deeper, but in this spiritual sight she made a leap from seeing to “this must be my mission field.” She sees a need, a weakness, a depravity, and like so many of us began to think that she is somehow there to fix or minister to it, and maybe she is. More likely though it is there to minister to and grow her through challenges, and to show her every place she is not wholly dependent upon Christ.

And so the mission field we are called to is Mission Field Me.

If we preach, then we preach out of obedience with the understanding that this is what God wants so He can be closer to us, not necessarily closer to them. If we minister, we minister in obedience to experience the closeness with Christ, not to meet an individual need, though they often are. It is our needs that are being met. Otherwise we are no different than the scribes and Pharisees. When we think we have it together, when we think we are God’s gift to someone else, or that we know something they do not, then we are as deceived as the scribes and Pharisees.

Do we promote a doctrine that we ourselves only keep in public view? Do we interpret our life as “blessed” and therefore in need of being shared and duplicated in others? As I will assure you there is only One who truly lived a blessed life, and only His life is worth sharing to the decree that we can truly, at the very depths of our soul and character, become like Him.

It is true that Jesus said, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” (Mark 16:15) It is also true that He said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations…” (Matt 28:19) But I think giving new consideration to “preaching” and the “gospel” is in order. A new consideration of what it is to “make disciples” perhaps should be considered far outside the confines of the institution of church and the limits of men’s doctrines. Can’t we read everything Jesus preached in a matter of a few hours, if not minutes? Can’t we see something far different in His training the original twelve disciples than what a weekly service offers?

As I look at the life of Christ I see a Savior that did a lot more living than He ever did speaking. His life was a public proclamation (preaching) with or without the words, or organization, or doctrine. Isn’t being a light preaching? Isn’t it a public proclamation to live in such a way people see Him instead of hear us?

God does not “need” you or me to accomplish His will. Helping with the harvest, shepherding the sheep is not done on an intellectual basis by conveying and teaching what “we know.” Helping with the harvest, shepherding sheep, making disciples is done by BEING a reflection of Christ in our very character, and by constantly pointing others to Him and to an individual relationship with Him. This is done on a practical basis. Perhaps there needs to be a new focus. I am my own mission field. I am the one who still contains a gigantic log in my own eye. Perhaps as I work with Christ to see clearly others will benefit, but my spiritual focus is me.

And then in murmuration to what the Holy Spirit is telling me I read this from New Life Church Houston on Facebook. They wrote, “(Is the church, and Christianity) merely a group of individual organizations & bureaucracies, divided not united, that flutter and sputter… Do you think we need the rise of a Real Organism (Body of Christ), not another Organization?... How do we accomplish this?... Be the Christian we know Jesus has made us. We are not called to ACT like Him. Rather, He has called us to KNOW Him, then in our love for Him, do what He says…”

I have a mission field that needs Christ to work in miraculously. That mission field is ME. Then perhaps I will be like Him in reflection rather than simply act like what I think He is.