The Issue: Depth of the Mission (Part 5/5)

“Most people worship their work, work at their play, and play at their worship.” It’s a line I have written in one of my Bibles that I picked up somewhere. It has stuck with me.

I cannot speak for others, but I have certainly been guilty of the charge. I love what I do for a living, because I don’t view it so much as a job as a vocation-a calling to minister amidst a pluralistic environment, amidst competing worldviews, because I know that some will respond to the truth, and God’s mission will be accomplished. Christ has told us plainly. When Christ was in the temple in Jerusalem in the colonnade of Solomon, he did not mince words: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). Earlier he told the hostile crowds, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:37).

We all battle frustrations on the battlefield of trying to bear witness to the truth. It can be, if you are actually putting skin in the game, so to speak, costly. Just this week, Christians in Nashville, TN were arrested for praying and singing hymns at an abortion mill. Let that sink in: Who was arrested? Christians. What are they facing? Up to 10 years in prison. What were they doing? Praying and singing hymns at an abortion mill. Where? Not in Moscow, Russia. Not in Tehran, Iran. It was in Nashville, TN. That’s where we are in our nation.

Believers could be tempted to abandon hope and think that secularism is the religion demanded by the people. We will see what will become of our nation. I don’t know how much more polarized and acerbic it may become, but I do know that God’s determined counsel will prevail. When God speaks in Isaiah, he says, “I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose'” (Isaiah 46:10b). If and how America fits into that plan is not for me to say. The vocation of believers is to be faithful, and not to play at our worship. The time of antics or pretense is long gone.

Encouragement & Application: I am blessed to work with some of the finest Soldiers I’ve ever known. And the Civilians, too, are usually retired veterans who are still putting skin in the game. Many of them serve as paragons of inspiration to me day in and day out. What is called for is nothing new. It is faithfulness. To complete the mission. To see it through. To give it all. Because that is what God gave in Christ the Son.