Living Missionaly

To me personally, living missionaly means giving your life to Jesus. I really think that the only way to live fully in mission is through dedication of my life. I just started reading this book "Radical" and it really made me think of something in a COMPLETELY different perspective! Most people know that in the Bible Jesus says "take up your cross and follow me" and I guess to me this was just a verse that was permanent in my brain and I thought I knew what it meant but really didn't. Jesus saying this is like if some guy came to me and said "hey Courtney.. take up your electrical chair and follow me" well now that doesn't sound to pleasant at all!! "Pick up an instrument of torture and follow me"...  I'm really starting to notice that when Jesus was on earth He didn't come and "fluff" Christianity to make it appeal to people.. He didn't make you "feel good" so you would follow Him. He told people to sell all of their possessions to leave their families to take up their cross. Jesus called for people to abandon themselves. To turn away from whats comfortable and what feels good and to take a journey into faith in Him that He will provide. To maybe go through times when we are hungry or homeless or lonely, but to trust in Him through those times. To be a Christian is to be on mission. Our mission is clear even if our vocation is not. I think that I really need to ABANDON myself. I need to rid myself of this world no matter how hard that is. I think it'll be a really, really tough road, but God calls us too and I want to follow after Him whole heartedly.

I'm not completely living a missional life. I'll be the first to admit - sometimes I think I do a horrible job at living a missional life. I strive to be a girl that has Jesus shining through her. I remember in elementary school at T Bar M sports camp I strived to be what they called a WOG (Woman of God) and ever since then I've wanted to be a "WOG". I have this desire to be an example to my friends and a mentor to younger girls. More than anything I want to be the mentor I never had. I think that God has blessed me with a moldable heart and I want to be obedient with what He calls me to do. I think that in some ways I am living a life of mission but in someways I'm not at all. I love giving advice and I think that that is a way I am living missionaly. My friends can all trust me and I always turn back to the Bible with them and pray with them when they need me or my help. One of my favorite quotes is "Preach the gospel always, when necessary use words." I just love that. I think that the way I do everything should show that I'm a Christian. I totally agree with Coach Rodden in that my facebook, my twitter, the way I talk to people, the music I listen to, the words I use, the movies I watch, the parties I go to, and my whole life should look DIFFERENT than a non-Christians life. I don't want to be lukewarm. I don't want to live a normal Christian life.. I think that Jesus calls us to be RADICAL. and in order to be radical I need to abandon myself. I want to spend my summer going to Christian Camps, doing community service, going on mission trips around the world, having Bible study!! Not going to parties, watching tv, going shopping all the time and wasting my life away. My favorite song by Lecrae says, "I only got one life to live and I'ma live it, filled with the spirit of God theres no limit so I dream. I wanna be used by Christ in some way, maybe I can change a life some day, so I dream. Dream big, one life, one Lord one Christ, one Summer it may not be the last one.. but whatchya gonna do to make it better than the last one? I used to think that I was nothing in the Lords eyes - I aint know enough to be one of the Lords guys - knew a little Bible, knew a couple verses, never made disciples, I was so observant... They say the young will see the visions, but man I'm feeling blind... but then I heard of David takin down Goliath, small thing to a giant but he still tried it - what if I can fight it? what if I can find it? the heart to trust in God and dream of strength that He provided. Watchya dreamin about? Dream bigger you don't know what God could bring about. Dream of being the player that leads the team to Christ, dream of being the doctor who leads a team to life, dream of muslim nations, turn to worship Jesus, dream of shattered families - stop pick up the pieces, Dream of God using you up in the class halls and share the truth of Christ before they see the last fall." I posted like the majority of the lyrics to this song because I just truly LOVE this song. I want to make every year, every summer, every week, and every day "better than the last one". I want to dream BIG. All I have to do is dream that God can use me!! I want to ABANDON my life so that God can use me in big ways!! Even if in my whole life I only lead one person to Christ... God could use that one person to bring 400 people to Him! He works in such cool ways and if I have to dedicate myself and live missionaly my whole life to bring that one person to Christ... then that is awesome and I want to start now!!

As I've been saying a change in my life I need to make to live more missionaly is I need to work on giving myself ALL to Jesus. To "Die" to myself. I need to realize that I no longer have the right to focus on myself anymore. If I want others to follow God, I need to follow God. If I want others to obey Jesus' teachings, I need to obey Jesus' teachings. If I want people to be excited about godly things, I need to be excited. I need to respect people. I cant just give up because I don't feel like it anymore. I need to understand that my tone of voice and the words I use are soo important to the person listening to whatever it is I have to say and I need to be careful. There are people who just want someone genuine to look up to. If Jesus says we need to be careful about lust in our lives, we need to be careful! It's hard to follow someone who talks a good talk, but when it comes down to the bottom line, they live 180 degrees differently from the way they talk. This is the problem with Christianity, we have soo many hypocrites and it turns people away.  I really want to make disciples. (Matthew 28). God has a plan and he allows us to be an important part of this relationship. Nobody is going to come up and asked to be discipled - we are insecure people, and don't want people tohave the opportunity to reject us on so many levels. I don't know many people that would say, "Hey, would you mind meeting me every other week after school? I'd like to know more about Jesus." It just doesn't happen like that. Jesus didn't say "sit around and wait" He said GO! And going means I need to take a proactive step in identifying and initiating friendship with someone who could be a future disciple.