April 7, 2009
Every human organization denies it’s mission by adding self centered mandates. These priorities increasingly rule out the greater good which was originally targeted. The result is an ever growing henhouse affect with it’s nest building priority. The church of Jesus Christ is subject to this reality.
His band of followers were asked to be disciples, representatives and teachers of the coming new kingdom. How would this mission be accomplished? Were they to build great buildings, create and argue dogma, organize great gatherings and raise money? Surely this new effort would have clear lines of authority and responsibility. These are the mandates of men, just ordinary men.
Jesus said, go but take nothing for your journey, neither a staff, nor a bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not even have two tunics apiece. (Luke 9:3) Was Jesus just in a hurry for their journey to begin? No, the representatives of God are to be totally vulnerable, defenseless, and unprepared proclaimers. Their faith vulnerability equation is fundamental to the new kingdom’s construction.
Jesus originated the mission of proclaimation because it was to bring lasting change. Who could believe that the death of a thirty three year old, ethnically obscure, uneducated, poor man in the outback of Palestine would make a world wide impression to last into three millennia? That fact boggles the mind of every aware, yet thinking modern man. Surely the conclusion that must be drawn is that our journey is not about an earthly legacy. Life is the opportunity to live toward the kingdom reality.
The church has long attempted to pass over this “weakness” of faith methodology. Within only a generation a spirit of arrogance brings additives to the mission that misdirect us to an earthly focus. This writer’s elemental reading of Church History reveals a two thousand year struggle at this point. Some would say even today the mission is more about regulation than proclaimation.
The most recent methodology is to go proclaiming hell. "If you were to die today, where would you go?" This is not the proclaimation that Jesus brought to earth. It smacks of a self glory that He would judge to be sinful.
The wonder of it all is that the proclaimation mission is still being voiced and is the fire in the belly of the church. Spirit’s of revival have regularly flared up amongst us, also for two thousand years, to revert the mission to being more about God’s agenda. He responds to faith and trust in His power not the power of men. Our human needs will be met as we channel His power to meet the needs of others. It’s simple but so difficult to live out. Are we kingdom proclaimers or doers of a religion?
The sad commentary is that every spirit of revival quickly reverts to orthodoxy. So it is, the dialogue between God and His humanity continues. Let us go,vulnerable as we are, to proclaim the invitation, the good news about citizenship in God's Kingdom. A Kingdom yet under construction.
G.Goslaw
Victorville, CA.
