{"id":13339,"date":"2015-09-23T09:30:07","date_gmt":"2015-09-23T13:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=13339"},"modified":"2015-09-23T11:23:58","modified_gmt":"2015-09-23T15:23:58","slug":"the-missionarys-goal-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=13339","title":{"rendered":"The Missionary&#8217;s Goal"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"key-verse-box\">\n<p><strong>He\u2026said to them, &#8220;Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem\u2026&#8221; \u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?version=31&amp;search=Luke+18%3A31\" target=\"_blank\">Luke 18:31<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- .entry-meta --><\/p>\n<div class=\"top-rule\"><\/div>\n<section class=\"entry-content\">\n<div class=\"post-content\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eKcImiTxqKg\" width=\"560\" height=\"350\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nIn our natural life our ambitions change as we grow, but in the Christian life the goal is given at the very beginning, and the beginning and the end are exactly the same, namely, our Lord Himself. We start with Christ and we end with Him\u2014 \u201c\u2026till we all come\u2026to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ\u2026\u201d (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Ephesians+4:13\">Ephesians 4:13<\/a>), not simply to our own idea of what the Christian life should be. The goal of the missionary is to do God\u2019s will, not to be useful or to win the lost. A missionary <em>is<\/em> useful and he <em>does<\/em> win the lost, but that is not his goal. His goal is to do the will of his Lord.In our Lord\u2019s life, Jerusalem was the place where He reached the culmination of His Father\u2019s will upon the cross, and unless we go there with Jesus we will have no friendship or fellowship with Him. Nothing ever diverted our Lord on His way to Jerusalem. He never hurried through certain villages where He was persecuted, or lingered in others where He was blessed. Neither gratitude nor ingratitude turned our Lord even the slightest degree away from His purpose to go \u201cup to Jerusalem.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master\u201d (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Matthew+10:24\">Matthew 10:24<\/a>). In other words, the same things that happened to our Lord will happen to us on our way to our \u201cJerusalem.\u201d There will be works of God exhibited through us, people will get blessed, and one or two will show gratitude while the rest will show total ingratitude, but nothing must divert us from going \u201cup to [our] Jerusalem.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2026there they crucified Him\u2026\u201d (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Luke+23:33\">Luke 23:33<\/a>). That is what happened when our Lord reached Jerusalem, and that event is the doorway to our salvation. The saints, however, do not end in crucifixion; by the Lord\u2019s grace they end in glory. In the meantime our watchword should be summed up by each of us saying, \u201cI too go \u2018up to Jerusalem.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n<p>__________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n<p>September 23 2015<\/p>\n<p>Journal Entry for Today-JDV<\/p>\n<p>Good morning Lord. This seems to be a study about Your will; a study that tells us we are to pursue Your will regardless of the consequences. I suspect most of us agree or plan to do your will, as long as the consequences are not too, too difficult. But when the times are hard, the future obscured and predictable outcomes appear painful and unthinkable\u2026.well, it cannot possibly be Your will that we go through trials and difficulties of that kind\u2026 could it?<\/p>\n<p>And God says\u2026\u201d<em>All things work together for the good of those that love the Lord and are called according to His purpose. What is it you say in church \u2026?\u201dGod is good all the time. All the time, God is good.\u201d When you agree to follow the will of God, you agree that God knows better than you. You agree to pursue the will of God, because you truly believe God has the very best in mind for you, regardless of what your current or future outcomes look like; regardless of how your five senses interpret your current or anticipated future circumstances. Acknowledge Me in all your ways and I will make your paths straight, delight yourself in the Lord and I will give you the desires of your heart. When you let go of your desires to look right, feel right, look good and to be in control, you free yourself to live in the will of God, and, over time, \u00a0to be transformed into the very\u00a0likeness of Christ.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>He\u2026said to them, &#8220;Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem\u2026&#8221; \u2014Luke 18:31 In our natural life our ambitions change as we grow, but in the Christian life the goal is given at the very beginning, and the beginning and the end are exactly the same, namely, our Lord Himself. We start with Christ and we [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13339"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13339"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13345,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13339\/revisions\/13345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}