Monday, January 2, 2012

A Missional God

To be "missional" is to be sent. The church is sent. The people of God are sent to be a sign, witness and foretaste of God's coming Kingdom in the midst of the world. We are sent to put on display God's beauty in the midst of violence. If we are going to do this God's way, then we must actually understand how God sends. Philippians 2 reveals some insight into this. Jesus Christ:

    6 Who, being in very nature God,
       did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
    7 rather, he made himself nothing
      by taking the very nature of a servant,
      being made in human likeness.
   8 And being found in appearance as a man,
      he humbled himself
      by becoming obedient to death—
         even death on a cross!

God reveals God's missional nature in the sending of Jesus Christ. God's mission flows out of his nature which is revealed in Jesus. Jesus was the ultimate sign, witness and foretaste of God's Kingdom. God sends us, through the power of the Holy Spirit in the same way that Jesus came, through self-giving, sacrificial agape love. As we do this, we become the beauty of the world.

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