God Is a Missionary God

“And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

One of Jesus’ final commands to His disciples, and to us as His followers, is to go into the world and make disciples.  It’s called the Great Commission which calls us to be missionaries to our world and our culture and spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Theologians call this the Missio Dei, or the Mission of God.  It’s God’s mission to spread His glory by using the Church to teach and train all people to love and follow Jesus.  In the Great Commission Jesus calls us to be a part of that mission.  That’s where we get the phrase, Living Missionally – it means to live in sync with or to live out, the Mission of God.

Have you ever thought about the fact that God is a missionary God?  He is.  The great thing about Jesus’ call for us to go out make disciples and spread the Gospel is that He did it Himself! He leads by example!  God is a sending God, with a desire to see all of humanity and creation reconciled, redeemed, and healed.  He sent Jesus for this purpose.

The greatest display of the mission of God is in John 3:16 which says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Today, let’s spend some time thinking about the fact that God is a missionary God who came into our world to reach us with His love through Jesus Christ.  His desire is to see all people reconciled, redeemed, and healed.

Our God is the God of “all the families of the earth?”  We need to become global Christians with a global vision, for we have a global God.  So may God help us never to forget His four-thousand-year-old promise to Abraham, “And in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” (Genesis 22:18)

Where Are the Christians?

“In the last days the mountain of the LORD's temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it.” (Isaiah 2:2)

All nations is one of my favorite phrases in the Bible. God is an inclusive God.  When He established a foothold in our fallen world by starting a diminutive nation called Israel, He was already thinking big.  God’s plan was to reach out through Israel to call all nations to Himself.

As never before, God’s purpose is being fulfilled.  Today nearly one-third or 31.2% of the world's population is considered to be Christian. [1]

God’s promise of a gospel that reaches “…to the ends of the earth.” is being realized. (See Acts 1:8) All nations are streaming toward the mountain of the Lord’s temple, not by pilgrimage to a physical temple in Jerusalem, but by coming to Jesus, the one who fulfills the temple’s deepest meaning of God’s presence among us.

Unfortunately many of us haven’t kept up on what God is doing to fulfill His global plans.  We still think of the church as strong in Europe and North America but in its infancy in the rest of the world. The truth is far different.

Praise God for the amazing things He is doing in our world.  I thank Him that in a world growing smaller every day we can experience community with fellow believers from across all cultures and nations.

[1] https://www.learnreligions.com/christianity-statistics-700533