Continued from: Foundations of missions: Our Calling (part 3)

"...to appoint you as a servant..."

You are called first to be a servant.

What does Jesus appoint us to do? First, he calls us to learn the role of a servant. This may have been easier to learn in Jesus' day when class distinctions and slave status were prevalent.

Self-centered Christians by definition have never made Jesus Lord of their lives. He is their savior but not their master. We have become a church of takers rather than servants.

Gen. William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army said, "The greatness of a man's power is the measure of his surrender." Have you surrendered your house, your car, your dreams, your family to Jesus? Only after we take up

His agenda can we receive

His commission. If you've done so, then, with Paul, you've taken on the role of a servant.

"...and as a witness..."

You are next called to be a witness.

A witness is one who testifies. We are called to testify to what we know of Jesus. We know for example, that Jesus has given us the gift of eternal life. We know that he desires to give that same gift to everyone else, that he burned with a desire to minister to the lost. We need to be consumed by that same desire.

Charles Spurgeon said, "Oh that the Lord would saturate us through and through with an undying zeal for the souls of men."

We have failed to understand Christ's heart for the lost. K.P. Yohannan says, "Christ meant his church to be primarily a missionary organization. The body of Christ is the living presence of a God whose heart is pounding with a passion for lost and dying souls. Jesus was always pressing on to preach the Gospel in the next village. His heart's cry was for the dead and dying, for the lost, sick and undone. And the heart of every true disciple who follows in the steps of Jesus will be the same. We must be willing, as he was, to let everything go for the sake of lost souls."

Have we taken on the role of a witness? Are we bothered by the fact that the world is perishing? Are we looking for ways to boldly give an account of what God is doing in our lives?

Continued in: Foundations of missions: Our Calling (part 5)