Remember Mission Impossible. Not so much the movie but the television series. At the beginning of each episode the Peter Graves character would receive his assignment on a cassette tape (remember those) which would self destruct after being played. Remember Leonard Nimoy pre Star Trek? The Mission Impossible Team would be given an “impossible” mission which they nevertheless completed. It always seemed to me that the assignment itself wasn’t so impossible; but that the team carried out the mission in such a complicated way that they made it seem impossible.
We do that with out mission. Our assignment is to lift up Jesus, nothing more and nothing less. That’s a straight forward assignment; but we make it near impossible. “We are nowhere commissioned to preach salvation or sanctification; we are commissioned to lift up Jesus Christ (John 12:32). It is a travesty to say that Jesus Christ travailed in Redemption to make me a saint. Jesus Christ travailed in Redemption to redeem the whole world, and place it unimpaired and rehabilitated before the throne of God.”
When we try to do more than our assignment, we accomplish less than our goal. If we believe our job is salvation, we are disappointed when others don’t make protestations of faith. If we believe our job is sanctification, we are doomed to disappointment in the lives of others. If we focus on our real job, Jesus, we are bound for glory. He never disappoints. He never fails. If we lift Him up, we never put ourselves as the model; He is. If we lift Him up, we never get confused that somehow we are responsible for results; whether good or not. It’s easy to lift Him up, He’s not heavy. And He saves and He sanctifies.
The very simplicity of our mission is what makes it difficult. Our nature seems to deplore simplicity. Our souls cry out “It can’t be this easy.” or “I’m not doing enough.” When the truth is we are usually doing too much. Our actions get in the way of His message.
No matter what the question; the answer is Jesus. There is one tiny little tricky part to this lifting up of Jesus: it’s not just an oral exercise. We lift Him up more with what we do than with what we say. If our words and actions are not in accord; our message is scrambled. We can’t say, “Jesus” and do something else.
We need to take the old “What Would Jesus Do?” question and convert it into action. We need to Do what Jesus would do. Is the Mission starting to sound Impossible again? Take heart, when we let Jesus lead the team, nothing’s impossible. We don’t do; He does.
Lift Jesus and
Be blessed.
Nick
It’s hard for babes in Christ to “get” that Sunday church service is not a duty but a Pep Rally for what we’re s’posedta carry out during the week–and tat is stretching the church out beyond the four walls of a building. WWJD? He wouldn’t/didn’t stay inside four walls!
P.S. Thanks, Bro. Nick!