This will be my last post in this series, and it will be my shortest. I want to cap this all off by tying to the the subtitle of this series: God’s Passion – Our Mission. We’ll take this one half at a time.
God’s Passion
God’s passion is His family. Like any good father, He wants all those He loves to be brought home. He desires to be reconciled with the prodigals. That’s why He has waited so long to end this period of grace:
[God] is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
2 Peter 3:9
God did not offer a limited salvation through Jesus. The door has been opened wide, and He has prepared a grand reception for all who will accept His invitation.
That’s where we come in.
Our Mission
God has prepared the reception, but we are charged with the delivering of the invitations.
[T]he owner of the house…ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’
‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’
Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full….’
Luke 14:21-24
We are to go out, in the power of the Holy Spirit, and compel the lost to be found. This is our mission, and again, I couldn’t think of a more difficult task than to preach life to those who have died. Hence, our need for the Spirit’s baptism, as we originally discussed.
If we love our Father, if we are truly being remade in the image of our Elder Brother, we should be out there accomplishing the mission of pursuing God’s passion: the lost souls of this world.