For the
longest time, when I thought about missions, I thought about a work that takes
place overseas in the middle of nowhere—somewhere in the middle of Africa or in
Asia or in the Middle East. And when I thought about missions, I also
thought about missionaries and pictured Indiana Jones type stuff. I
pictured people living out in the middle of nowhere in grass huts fighting off
deadly poisonous snakes and eating bugs—something completely foreign to me.
It wasn’t
until I went on my first mission trip after graduating college that I got to
see first-hand the fact that GOD IS A MISSIONAL GOD. I remember sitting in a
small, hole-in-the-wall church in a village outside of Mexico City and watching
those in the church worshiping God together. I remember it
dawned on me right then and there that God is just as much at work in this
village as he is anywhere else in the world.
God
opened my eyes on that trip to the fact that he is all about being known
and worshiped everywhere—HE IS A MISSIONAL GOD. He wants to be known
and worshiped where he is not known and worshiped.
Over the
years, I’ve not just learned that truth through my experiences in ministry and
by doing mission work, but have learned it by studying His Word. The
Bible goes to great lengths to stress the fact that God is a missional
God. Ralph Winter once said, “The Bible is not the basis of missions;
missions is the basis of the Bible."
To hear
more of God’s heart for the nations click HERE and listen to, “JONAH IS ABOUT A
MISSIONAL GOD.”.
