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)