Welcome to my blog. This is the first one I've written for our new site. So, in light of that, I thought I would start off with a question: Did Jesus have a mission statement?
We all know that He had a mission, but did He ever verbalize a mission statement of sorts? I believe He did, and it shows up in Luke 4:18-19.
But before we look at what He said in those verses, we need to see what the setting and occasion was. Jesus was just beginning His earthly ministry when He went to His home town on the Sabbath and, entering the local synagogue, He stood and read a portion from the Book of Isaiah (Isaiah 61):
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." After the reading Jesus gave the scroll back, sat down, and said, "Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing"
By doing this, Jesus was proclaiming His mission. His mission was to preach about the good news, the news that salvation was now being made available to everyone who desired it. The poor refers to anyone who is miserably poor, wretched, desperately needy. This describes everyone who is separated from God. The brokenhearted refers to those who were discouraged because of their plight in life. The captives are those held tight by their sin. He had come to set them free. His mission included opening the eyes of the spiritually blind so they could see the truth. He had come to set free everyone who was broken in spirit, to literally break their spiritual bondage like the breaking of pottery when it's thrown to the ground. He came to give everyone a new start, a new beginning.
This is the our mission as Christians and as His church. We are the ones who are to continue the mission of Christ. This is the good news, and we are called to be conduits of His mission and love to everyone, everywhere. So, welcome to the mission field.
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