Missions? That's a Given.

An excerpt from...

Missions? That's a Given

By Hubert Harriman, President
October-December 2013

When I was just out of college, I worked in the packaging department of a trailer factory. Our job was to package the right nuts, bolts, screws, and other essentials that would make possible a full assembly. I had to know the list of items that had to go in those packages. To miss something would cause a breakdown in the final assembly of the trailer. We would render it useless just by missing one vital item.

Discipleship is really all about the right listing in our lives, learning and discovering what matters and what doesn’t matter, and giving full attention to the more important. The Bible gives us many “lists” of essentials:

• Paul gives us the list of the fruit of the Spirit, essential for spiritual life (Galatians 5:22).
• Paul also speaks to the list of “The full armor of God,” essential for spiritual victory (Ephesians 6:14-18).
• Peter gives the list of “qualities,” essential for spiritual growth (2 Peter 1:5-6).

To miss anything on the list is detrimental to our spiritual lives.

One American company makes a point of excluding the obvious in its public statements about itself. Some organizational values are considered so basic that there is no need to point them out. They are what some would call a given. For instance, the expectations of food quality and employee integrity are givens. Likewise, when we talk about missions as presented in the Bible and expected in the Christian life, we ought to say, “Missions? Of course! That’s a given.”

God very clearly speaks to lists of Christian involvement that should flow easily and quickly out of our lives simply because we know the work of His Spirit in our lives. Missions is on that list. “It’s a given!” But His work in us changes the list from something we might force ourselves to do to something we want to do and have the ability to do because of His very nature and power in us.

So how’s that going in your life? I pray God will quicken in each of us the very heart of God for a lost world. Ask God to lead you in making a list of ways He wants you to be involved in this great enterprise called missions. 

ACT: Get in the Word. Hubert offers four passages of scripture in this article. Take time this week to study this “list” of essentials.