Your Mission

should you chose to accept it

Scripture Reading: Acts 3

              Peter and John had a plan – go to the Temple and pray – but it wasn’t a sly, back-door gospel strategy. They might have passed by the lame man had he not asked alms from them. But he did, and they were moved by the Holy Spirit to heal the man. That rapidly led to a chain of events that included an impromptu gospel sermon to the crowd in the Temple courts, an arrest, and a further witness to the religious leaders.

              It is good to have a plan. It is more important to have a mission that is pervasive and able to disrupt any and every plan because it serves a greater purpose and has meaningful and lasting significance. Let’s call this mission a “Great Commission.” Peter and John had that kind of mission. Although they planned to go and pray, that plan was disrupted (happily so) by the mission of gospel proclamation.

              Today you have a plan of some sort. It may not be something you worked out on a whiteboard with a life coach, but you have in mind the things you are going to do. You are going to go somewhere and do something. Jesus had that in mind when he said, “As you are going…” That’s all good. But you and I also need to have a mission that can override, if necessary, the plan. We need to have a mindset of looking for the opportunity to proclaim the gospel. We need a “Great Commission.”

              We should pray as Charles Spurgeon prayed:

Lord, arouse us to a deep concern for all those with whom we come in contact from day to day. Make us all missionaries at home or in the street, or in our workshop; wherever Providence has cast our lot, may we there shine as lights in the world.