Do three purposeful deeds today (Friday Soulfest)
In today’s Friday Soulfest (for more on Friday Soulfest, see
below), I want to talk about one of the most fascinating discoveries I made
when I was doing research to write Luminous.
It can lead to a profound shift in our thinking.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
Then I wondered,
“Doesn’t this word ‘sent’ show up in other things Jesus said?” I found a
reference. And then another one. I ended up going through all 21 chapters of
John, marking every time Jesus made some comment about being sent by the
Father. What I found astonished me. There were 42 times Jesus talked about
being sent between chapters 3 and 17 of John. That’s 42 references in 15
chapters, or almost 3 times a chapter! That really struck me. I haven’t counted
up Jesus’ references to “eternal life” in John, but I doubt it is as many as 3
times per chapter.
That’s why I make such a big deal about “sent-ness” in
chapter 2 of Luminous. And I couldn’t
help but ask the question, “If Jesus continually thought about being sent, why
don’t we?”
If I know myself and other fallen people, I am pretty sure
it’s because we don’t really like the idea of being sent. If we are sent, it
means we have to live by someone else’s agenda instead of ours. That really
cuts against the grain for contemporary Westerners, who are adamant about being
our own masters.
Our preference for radical independence doesn’t change the
fact that Jesus said to the disciples, “Just as the Father sent me, so I am
sending you” (John 20:21). Following Jesus means giving up our independence and
devoting ourselves God’s mission to bring about love for God and people in this
world.
All of which leads me to a simple, thought-shifting exercise
you can carry out today. This is from chapter 2 of Luminous:
Do
three deeds of sent-ness. Do
three deeds today, small or large, for no other reason than that being sent is
your purpose. To go deeper, make this a daily assignment for the next month.
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About Friday Soulfest… How better to head into a weekend
than a soulfest? That’s a festival for your Luminous:
Living the Presence and Power of Jesus. With these posts, I hope to give
you springboards for communing with Jesus. He’s the one who puts the fest in
our souls!
soul, and it means connecting with
God in deeply happy-making ways. Throughout 2014, I will be posting excerpts
and prayer exercises from my book
David,
ReplyDeleteI will ask Jesus to send me my three deeds today.