the missionary God, his Son, and his Church

“The Lord of the Scriptures is a missionary God who not only reaches out and gathers the lost but also sends his servants, and particularly his beloved Son, to achieve his gracious saving purposes.  As many have rightly observed, the most important mission in the Scriptures is the missio Dei. Jesus Christ is the ‘missionary’ par excellence: the basic and foundational mission is his.  He has been sent by the Father to effect forgiveness and salvation, especially through his death and resurrection (cf. Luke 4:18-19; 24:47-47), and then to announce it to Jews and Gentiles alike.  In fulfillment of the Servant’s role his task is to bring (or, perhaps, be) God’s salvation to the ends of the earth.  

"The mission of the exalted Jesus is accomplished through the witness of the apostles in the power of the Holy Spirit.  The one who is himself sent by God sends his representatives to bear testimony to his salvation, to announce the forgiveness of sins and to make disciples of all nations.  In other words, his witnesses continue the mission of Jesus by declaring to men and women everywhere the glorious gospel of the grace of God.”

- Köstenberger, Andreas J. and Peter T. O'Brien, Salvation to the Ends of the Earth, pg. 269.

Imperialism and Diversity

I'm most of the way through Tim Chester's excellent book From Creation to New Creation, which is a book on the story of the Bible through the lens of Genesis 12 and the promises to Abraham.  This quote seemed interesting and worth sharing. All the nations are gathered in heaven in the last day and bring their rich cultures with them...

A characteristic of imperialism ever since Babel has been its move towards ethnic and linguistic homogeneity.  But the 'empire' of the Lamb is different.  It celebrates diversity. (153)

(Chester is best known perhaps for his book Total Church, but he has a number of excellent resources available.  Check the Westminster Bookstore as well as Amazon.)

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you!

  In the last couple days, I noticed that when I call Talitha to me and she starts crawling, she often gets distracted.  She needs me to keep calling her to me because the initial expression of my desire for her to be closer is not strong enough or important enough in her mind to keep her focused on coming to me.  She needs to see me also stretching my arms further and further and moving towards her.

  Are we not often just like that in our walk with God?  Do I not continually get distracted from my purpose of drawing nearer to our Daddy in Heaven?  Do I not forget that He already gave me the greatest possible incentive to draw near and the greatest expression of His love centuries ago?  And so, He continually reaches out to us and Himself comes a little nearer with His arms stretched even further toward us.

Steady certainty - What God and His Word always bring!

Turn to me and have mercy on me, 

   as you always do to those who love your name.  

Your promises have been thoroughly tested,
   and your servant loves them.  (Ps 119:132, 140- NIV)

  Two verses that stood out today as some friends and I were going through those two sections of Psalm 119.  1) God always turns to His children and is merciful to them, always!  2) Furthermore, his promises have been thoroughly tested and proven true, so we may put full faith in them and delight and love them.  The promises of God have been put through the wringer of human experience, particularly in the incarnation and suffering of His Son, and they have always come through.  Delight in the promises of God, for they are certain.

Extracts on Storytelling

I have been studying storytelling over the course of a couple months to try to learn to tell The Story better; this website has some good basic advice from which I have clipped some statements.

Oral storytelling involves much interaction between teller and hearer. I have observed that our audiences have lost some of the skills to follow a narrated story and see things in their minds. Storytelling has become more difficult. Attention spans are shorter and more demanding, more sophisticated, yet less able to independently imagine or visualize. People seem to need more visual stimulation.

Once you settle on a story, you will want to spend plenty of time with it. It will take a considerable period of time and a number of tellings before a new story becomes your own. 

Once you finish the story - stop! Don't ramble on. Leave their thoughts lingering over it. Don't feel you have to explain everything, or tie together all loose ends. Let them go away thinking about what has been said, and drawing their own meaning from it!

The more you practice- the more skilled you will become. Don't be afraid to try different methods. Be creative. As you do learn from your experiences. Expect to flop, the best of us do. Don't be overly self- conscious. Have fun and share the joy of story.

regarding sacrifice and ease

And it is no strange thing that happens to us, if God takes us at our word, and strips us for a while of all that made life beautiful.  It may be outward things-bodily comfort, leisure, culture, reputation, friendships--that have to drift away as our hands refuse to clasp on anything but God's will for us. Or it may be on our inner life that the stripping falls, and we have to leave the sunny lands of spiritual enjoyment for one after another of temptation's battlefields, where every inch of our foothold has to be tested, where even, it may seem to give way--till no experience, no resting-place remains to us in heaven or earth but God Himself--till we are "wrecked upon God."
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You are right to be glad in His April days while he gives them. Every stage of the heavenly growth in us is lovely to Him; He is the God of the daisies and the lambs and the merry child hearts! It may be that no such path of loss lies before you; there are people like the lands where spring and summer weave the year between them, and the autumn processes are hardly noticed as they come and go.
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Yes, there is another stage to be developed in us after the lesson of absolute unquestioning surrender to God has been learnt. A life that has been poured forth to Him must find its crown, its completion, in being poured forth for man: it must grow out of surrender into sacrifice.
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"Love is the fulfilling of the law," and sacrifice is the very life-breath of love.

--- Parables of the Cross by I. Lilias Trotter

regarding sanctification, the 'putting off' and 'putting on'

In Parables of the Cross, I. Lilias Trotter shows herself to believe in Keswick sanctification at its very best, and the first quotation below is what the best of the early Keswickians believed as best as I can tell... though it is certain that they don't always sound like they believe that "It is both."  It is probably the best practical summary of Keswickian sanctification that I have seen.

But is it an act, or a gradual process, this "putting off the old man?" It is both. It is a resolve taken once for all, but carried out in detail day by day. The first hour that the sap begins to withdraw, and the leaf-stalk begins to silt up, the leaf's fate is sealed: there is never a moment's reversal of the decision.
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Once allow the manifestation of His grace in these poor hearts of ours to be a miracle, and there is no need to defer it vaguely. How many of the wonders wrought by Christ on earth lay in concentrating the long processes of nature into a sudden act of power. The sick would, many of them, have been healed by degrees in the ordinary course of things; the lapse of years would have brought about the withering of the fig-tree; the storm would have spent itself in few hours. The miracle in each case consisted in the slow process being quickened by the Divine breath, and condensed into a moment.

regarding salvation and spiritual reproduction

   I just finished listening to Parables of the Cross by I. Lilias Trotter (on my Kindle!), and there are several quotes that stand out as worthy of sharing.  So, I am planning several different posts from that source.

 It is when we come to self-despair, when we feel ourselves locked in, waiting our doom, that the glory and the beauty of God's way of escape dawns upon us, and we submit ourselves to Him in it. All resistance breaks down as faith closes on the fact: "He loved me and gave Himself for me." 

A flower that stops short at its flowering misses its purpose. We were created for more than our own spiritual development; reproduction, not mere development, is the goal of matured being--reproduction in other lives.