The Mission is Impossible

   We had the privilege of participating in a Mission Conference in Hendersonville, NC at Covenant Presbyterian Church where our friends Chip and Karen Vining are serving as Pastor.

   Pastor Ron Shaw gave the Sunday morning message and he asked a question which caught my attention.  "Do I want God to build His kingdom through me or do I want to build God's kingdom through my own gifts and talent?"

   Pastor Shaw was quick to point out that the Great Commission in Matt 28:18-20 was impossible and that the first thing that I have to learn is that I can't do it myself.  Well, I did perceive in my last term of service in the Philippines that there was not not enough strength within me to survive.  But where was my kingdom building focus?  In Matt 23:4, Jesus said the scribes and Pharisees "tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders."  I was convicted of how I am the one that tied up the heavy burden of building God's kingdom through my own gifts and talents which was not only hard to bear but impossible and I had laid it upon my own shoulders.  Dear me, I am so easily blinded. Remember, I am the one that felt so inadequate to go as a missionary because of the lack of my own gifts and talents.  God has shown me how this inadequacy almost paralyzed my ministering in the Philippines but even more so that my focus was based on myself and not Christ.  Matt 28:18-20 says, "All authority in Heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus Christ.  Go therefore...and behold I (Jesus) is with me always."  I realized my lack of my own gifts and talents but I stopped there.  My heart is PRAISING the Lord for allowing me to see just how off focus I was and that I can go with much hope and confidence in Jesus Christ who has "all authority in Heaven and on earth" not myself.  Oh God, give me faith to believe and keep my focus on You.