Duane Smets (Source: Resurgence)
In the previous posts, we talked about reasons we feel too busy to stay on mission. This post will deal with the lies that keep us from mission.
Negative View of Conversion
Sometimes we find ourselves wanting to talk to people about Jesus and the benefit of having him in our lives, but we know we are different from other people, so who knows if it’s something they’d be into or need? Others may feel more strongly about it and believe their religious beliefs are private and personal. They think they shouldn’t intrude on people by trying to persuade them one way or another.
The interesting thing about this is, whether knowingly or unknowingly, it presents proselytizing or trying to convert someone as being a “grey area,” so that withholding judgment or influence keeps one safe and ambivalent, free from manipulation or coercion.
The funny thing is it is not a grey area. If you have children, what will you teach them? If you teach them to love God and his son Jesus, you are telling them such a thing is important. If you don’t teach them to believe in and follow Jesus, you are telling them such a thing is unimportant. There is no grey middle road.
The same goes for all our relationships. What we essentially have with the person of Jesus is him living a life of constantly trying to convert people, which should tell us you can’t love Jesus and not love his mission. That would be duplicitous and wrong. If we love Jesus, we will figure out how to be on mission for him and seek to persuade others: “Knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others” (2 Corinthians 5:11).
Loss of Free Time
Since being on mission means spending time with other people, we can feel like we won’t have time to ourselves to enjoy.
This brings out two things. One, we should have regular alone time. That is good, important, and healthy. However, it brings out a second thing and that is we can also have too much alone time where we spend it all on ourselves and look at the hours of the day as “ours” to do with what we please. Each day we live is a gift of God, and the hours of the days do not belong to us, but to him. There is a natural sacrifice of self and our agenda that moves us to “make the most of our time” for the sake of the gospel (Ephesians 5:16).
Lack of Common Interests
One barrier we can experience when reaching out as a missionary to people who are unlike us is we can feel as though we have nothing in common with them. It may seem like we are so different that there is no way to relate or connect. In the most extreme cases, we may not even like a person or that type of person.
It is true there are people who are unlike us that Jesus has called us to reach out to. Yet similar to the way Jesus (who was very unlike us in the fact that he was God) became a man in order to reach out to us, we too have the ability to find commonality with others (Philippians 2:5-11). We may be different in our music or movie tastes, hobbies, or the way we dress, but all people share the most important things in common. We all come from a creator, have experienced and participated in sin, and are in need of a savior. We do have real things in common like eternity, morality, and relationship, and we can relate and connect on those levels in a very real and powerful way.
Interestingly, it’s often the people who are the most unlike us in our outward interests who can break through the things that hinder our ability to get beneath the surface with each other. Sometimes it’s the people who are the most unlike you that force or enable you to grow in the ways you need to.
