June 24

Mission and Finishing Strong

What a sad ending to the life of Uzziah. This guy was “Man of the Year” in his day. He had achieved rock star status in his life time. He was king, general, designer, gardener, inventor yet the epitaph for his life “he had leprosy.” A reminder of how difficult it is to finish the race well. And the reason he came down with leprosy was he forgot his mission and was filled with pride. In the year that King Uzziah died Isaiah received his mission. There is a three step process to his mission and ours.

1. To see the Lord. We must have a face to face encounter with God. Isaiah had a physical encounter with the Lord. For most of history this is extremely rare. But we can have a face to face with God’s Word every day. The purpose of this encounter is to see the character of God. To know what he is like so that we can trust him.

2. Transformation. Isaiah realizes that he is a man of unclean lips and he is transformed by having his guilt taken away. A changed life is the second step of our mission. But it is not the final step.

3. The final step is “GOING.” Whom shall I send? And who will go for us? And I said, “Here am I, send me!” Going and proclaiming the gospel is the third step of our mission. Who are you mentoring and discipling?

So the questions for us on June 24th...... have you seen the Lord today? Are you being changed? Who are you going to tell?

A Personal Note: I will be working on my own “finishing strong” strategy this summer. I have scheduled a sabbatical for the next 13 weeks. I ask for your prayers as I leave to work on these three steps in my own life. Saturday will be my last blog until October.

You can go to http://gracebiblereaders.blogspot.com/ to view last year’s journal entries on any day. Steve, Galya and Apryl will continue to share their insights weekly.

May God continue to speak to us, transform our lives and clarify our mission.