LifeLink Devotions

Wednesday, March 29, 2023

Most successful businesses have a mission statement. Sometimes you will even see it posted in a prominent place in their business. These businesspeople understand that to be successful they have to know who they are and what they want to accomplish. Mission statements have become so important that there are now businesses whose sole purpose is to help other businesses write mission statements.There are even several web sites designed to help individuals write personal mission statements to guide their personal lives. All these businesses understand one simple truth – life without mission is meaningless. Or, as Proverbs 29:18 puts it, “Where there is no vision, the people perish…”

Jack Welch, the chairman of General Electric, says, “Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.”  I believe that’s what the Gospel of John is all about in the New Testament – Jesus Christ owning and articulating God’s vision, and relentlessly driving it to completion. In the book of John the words “sent me” are used by Jesus 33 times to declare the mission the Father had chosen for Him. Twice Jesus states that He is sending us in the same way. (John 17:18; John 20:21) It seems that it would be wise for us to study the mission of Christ so that we may better define our mission for Christ.

For the last few days we have studied the mission of Jesus to model to the world the love of God. In today’s Scripture passage we see another aspect of His mission – to tell the world the truth about God.

John 17:13-19 “Now I am coming to you. I told them many things while I was with them in this world so they would be filled with my joy. I have given them your word. And the world hates them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I’m not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one. They do not belong to this world any more than I do. Make them holy by your truth; teach them your word, which is truth. Just as you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world. And I give myself as a holy sacrifice for them so they can be made holy by your truth.”

Christ’s purpose was to accomplish three things:

1.      So that we may be filled with joy. Joy is a product of knowing the truth. There is a serious reason why there isn’t more joy in the church today. According to George Barna Research, 68% of all evangelical born-again Christians do not believe in absolute truth. Just think, 7 out of every 10 people sitting in our churches today do not believe that there is even one absolute truth in the world. No wonder there isn’t much joy – people’s lives are filled with fear, not knowing truth. Christ’s mission was to tell us the truth so that we could be filled with joy.

2.      So that we may be holy. Jesus says that when we receive His word as truth we will no longer belong to the world, just as He did not belong to the world. Christ’s mission was to distinguish us from sinful society and defend us from satanic stimulus. His sacrificial death on the cross as a holy substitute for our sin makes it possible for us to be transformed by the truth into a holy child of God, set apart from the world for a sacred purpose.

3.      So that we may be sent on a mission. Once we have accepted the truth and been filled with the strength to resist the world because of the joy of our salvation, we are qualified to be sent as the personal emissaries of the King. Jesus says that He will send us on His mission “just as the Father sent Him on His.” God sent Jesus as truth, holy and protected from the evil one. He sends us the same way.

So why not write a personal mission statement from what you learned today. Here’s mine:

“I rejoice in the truth which has made me holy, safe from the world to which I do not belong, and I present my life as a living sacrifice to God so that others might be see the love of God in me, be made holy by the same truth, and be filled with the joy of salvation.”

Pastor John