Day 29: God Has Placed Me On Mission With Him

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

»  Give thanks to God for the specific things He has done for you.

»  Make a list of the top 10 people with whom you have the most influence.

»  Pray for those 10 people and watch for opportunities to serve them well.

»  Practice the memory verse.

QUOTE

“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”
- Teresa of Avila

SCRIPTURE

“Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.”
- Acts 16:31

DEVOTIONAL

One day Jesus delivered, healed, and completely transformed a man tormented by a legion of demons. He lived naked among the tombs, cutting himself with rocks and terrifying the city. The guy was so grateful for what Jesus did for him that he wanted to travel with Him wherever He went. What a great miracle story Jesus could use to draw big crowds and wow audiences. But Jesus refused and told him, instead, to “go back to your own people and tell them everything the Lord has done for you.” (Mark 5:19)

Jesus knew a secret that this man did not yet understand.

Like that man, your life has been changed by God’s grace and you want to glorify Him and serve Him. Maybe you have ideas about what that might look like, but Jesus knows a secret that you might not yet understand.

The secret is that you were created on purpose and made for a mission; He pulled you out of darkness in order to send you back into that darkness, to help others find their way back to God too. The secret is that you are the best candidate possible to love, serve, and influence certain people. Those people are called, in the Bible, your “oikos” or “household.” These are your family, neighbors, co- workers, friends, and those within your traffic pattern, in whose lives you already have influence and favor. He has already, strategically and supernaturally, placed a group of people in your world as your personal assignment. Going to foreign countries is awesome, but it is not the best way to find your personal mission. You are living in it right now.

The Roman jailer in Acts 16, Cornelius in Acts 11, Zacchaeus in Luke 19, and the woman at the well in John 4 all used their transformation story to influence their Oikos toward Jesus and were used by God
to help them find their way back to Him. This is the way God has chosen to change the world; using transformed people to introduce their Oikos to God so He can change their world too. He is changing the world, one household at a time, and He wants to use you to change your world, too.