Hope is what the mission offers

The mission must always be conveyed as hope for the world because that is what the good news is. Followers of Jesus are to be voices of hope, encountering culture and relevantly communicating the purposes of God for all humanity. Today people are not looking for a hell to get out of or a heaven to get into, but a reason to live and to die. The world must know that this is what the God of the living offers. Christians must see the hope of God in people. Just as God believes in us more than we believe in Him, we must believe in people more than they may believe in themselves. The hope is not something new to believe in, but a new life as it was intended to be lived. This hope is in a life before death, not just after. The mission offers the world hope of life, and life to the fullest.

We had our first discovering God session last week. Eight people from different backgrounds gathered to discuss their spiritual journey. It's amazing how every single person had come into contact with the church and had left. How can a message so wonderful and life-giving have a near hundred-precent rejection ratio? Spirituality today is at an all-time high, yet Christianity is far from it. One can only conclude that much of Christianity in our culture is nothing more than an empty shell of a religion. This is not the church that Jesus Christ died for. Yet their is a rumbling beneath the surface of a rising generation of Jesus-followers whose passion is to be the church that God had intended. To offer hope and love and life to all those who are willing to receive.

I love this quote, via Tony, see the rest of the article here.

If you have apostolic passion, you are one of the most dangerous people on the planet. The world no longer rules your heart. You are no longer seduced by getting and gaining but devoted to spreading and proclaiming the glory of God in the nations. You live as a pilgrim, unattached to the cares of this world. You are not afraid of loss. You even dare to believe you may be given the privilege of dying to spread His fame on the earth. The Father's passions have become your passions. You find your satisfaction and significance in Him. You believe He is with you always, to the end of life itself. You are sold out to God, and you live for the Lamb. Satan fears you, and the angels applaud you.

Not only is this apostolic passion emerging from 'Christians' today, but a desperate longing for something more has been errupting from people all around us. The questions that came from our group that night were endless, we didn't even try to answer any of them. But in the questions there is a quest... the journey has begun for many... How is it that we can keep the hope that God offers the world to ourselves?