Ezekiel's Mission

What makes a mission a success or a failure? Does a successful work for God mean that every person we talk to turns to God, or are we successful just for our obedience? God gave Ezekiel a mission, and He also provided the means by which to measure the success of that mission.

In Ezekiel 2:3-5, God's mission for Ezekiel is to simply go and tell the Israelites that they have rebelled against God. Just as we are now commanded to go and preach the gospel, Ezekiel was commanded to go to his own countrymen and preach the gospel. Ezekiel 2:6 adds that Ezekiel was not to be afraid of them or their words. Both them and their words are specified. God protects those who are following His will.

Ezekiel 2:7-8 then defines what will constitute success on Ezekiel's mission: listen to God's words, don't rebel. That's all Ezekiel had to do. His success wasn't reliant upon the response his message would generate; it wasn't based on the number of people who agreed with the word of God. His success would only be measured by his obedience to God.

So, when we feel like we're failing in our mission because we don't have new converts every day or week or month, or when we feel like we're doing something wrong because we aren't seeing the results we expected, we should remember that our success is not measured by the response of men, but by our own response to the will of God.

The Death We Celebrate

Why do we celebrate the birth of Jesus? We often refer to Him as "Jesus Christ", and we refer to this upcoming holiday as "Christmas", but what does it really mean? Jesus' last name wasn't "Christ", nor was it His middle name. The Hebrew word for "Christ" is usually transliterated as "Messiah". Therefore, "Jesus Christ" is actually "Jesus the Messiah".

So, what is the "mas" as the end of the word "Christmas" then? We actually get the suffix "-mas" from the Latin word "missa", which is actually a dismissal. A dismissal in this form is taken as a release to perform a mission. It shares a root with the word "Mass" as in the Catholic tradition, to which the final Latin words are "Ite, missa est", or "Go; it is the dismissal".

"Christmas" then is actually "the release to perform the mission of the Messiah". Mark 16:15-18 defines this mission. After Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, he gives this single command - "Go". Are we celebrating the birth of Christ? In a sense, we are; without the birth, there would have been no life, death, resurrection, or command to "Go".

Truly, we are celebrating the opportunity to perform the work of the Messiah. We are celebrating the freedom we have through His blood. We celebrate His life, His example, and His redemption! Tell someone the story of Christ this Christmas. Share the redemption story with your family; tell your kids, parents, wife, neighbor, boss, friends, co-workers, and even your church friends. Share the good news even with those who already believe! We celebrate not the birth of Jesus, we celebrate the life we have through His death!

The Life and Leadership of Jesus Christ

Quite obviously to cover the entire life and leadership examples of Christ would be far more than would be feasible in a single post, but we'll touch on some of the highlights. One of the primary focuses of the New Testament church throughout the Bible is teaching the Word of God. We find Jesus doing this already by the time He was just 12 years old in Luke 2:42-47. And we see this continues as an example in several other verses as well (Matthew 4:23, Matthew 7:28-29, Matthew 28:18-20). We're supposed to teach and preach boldly and with authority. We're supposed to call others to follow Christ (Luke 19:5-10, Luke 5:27-28, Mark 1:16-18).

Going hand in hand, we see that Christ's example was that of unselfishness (Romans 15:1-3), providing for those in need (Luke 11:9-10), and serving others (Mark 10:43-45, Matthew 20:26-28). These are powerful examples. Jesus wasn't just a leader, He was a servant of those who followed Him. He was also a friend to those who followed Him (John 15:15), and He loved them (John 13:34-35, John 15:13). So often as men, it's easy for us to bow down to serve others and show others love, but this was the example that Christ set for us.

One of the greatest examples that we overlook as men that was set for us by Jesus was to not try to do everything ourselves; we need to let other people help (Mark 3:13-15, Luke 10:1). Jesus didn't try to fulfill the Scriptures foretelling His arrival all alone. He chose great men to assist Him in His work. If Jesus needed other people to help bear His load, how much more do we need others to help us?

The final example that Christ set for us was that of not leaving our work half-finished. Jesus finished all that He was intended to, and did so in a complete fashion. John 18:9 tells us that Jesus lost none who was given to Him to save, and John 17:4 and John 19:30 both herald that his work here on earth was completed. His life on earth was short, but it was lived exactly as intended, and completely fulfilled God's will without fail. May that be our testimony when we die: our work was completed, and we were great leaders for God.

Epaphras: The every man

We know that there were quite a few churches that Paul planted in the years following the death of Jesus. Many of these he wrote letters to that are now contained in the New Testament. Today we are going to look at a well-known church that Paul wrote to, but wasn't started by Paul himself. Epaphras was another christian in Paul's time, and spent some time with Paul tending to him while he was in prison. While Epaphras is only mentioned twice in the Bible, he still managed to start at least one church. The church at Colosse. This was Epaphras' home town, and here he planted a church after being led to the Lord by Paul.

Colossians 1:1-2
This is what could be almost called Paul's regular greeting. In almost everything he wrote included the salutation Grace and Peace. I don't think there's anything better that you could ask for someone. Grace to save us, and Peace to sustain us until we reach heaven.

Colossians 1:3-8
Here we see Epaphras as a messenger to the Colossians. Paul is writing to them when he hasn't necessarily met them, but knowing from the word of Epaphras about the Godly love that these people had for all the saints, he felt it necessary to write to these people. No doubt the name of Paul of Tarsus had spread through the early church similar to how Billy Graham or other evangelists are well-known among both christian and non-christians today, but how many people knew the name Epaphras? Possibly not many at all.

We know very little about Epaphras except what Paul wrote in Colossians, and that he is mentioned in the closing of Philemon. So he doesn't strike me as the sort of famous all-star evangelist that seem to take the scene in today's world. Yet he did something that was worth mentioning. He through the Spirit changed the community he lived in by witnessing and helping this small group of believers to come to the knowledge of the gospel. While this may not be anything big by the World's standards, we know that to God this is important.

So what is the testimony of Epaphras? Paul is able to sum him up in a very short verse. Colossians 1:7 says Epaphras was Paul's dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on Paul's behalf. Is there anyone that could or would say the same about you? It's important that we remember that to do the work of God, it doesn't take fame instead it takes a willing heart, the Love of God, and allowing the Holy Spirit to work through you. You may not get recognition or fame on earth, but the treasure you lay up in heaven is much better that anything that you could get here.

Saved by Faith! Now What?

If you’ve not been following over the last two days, or if you’ve not yet accepted God’s great gift of salvation and made Jesus master of your life, I urge you to go back two days and start reading there and catch up. Otherwise, read on!

So you’ve recently gotten saved, or you’re just drifting along in your spiritual life, and you’re unsure of what to do or where to go. Or maybe you’re a dedicated Christian, strong in the Lord. Whoever you are, if your sins have been covered by the blood that Jesus shed on the cross, then these words apply to you.

Reading 2 Thessalonians 2:15 and 2 Timothy 2:15, we see that we need to study the teachings we have, contained in the Bible, so that we can be strong Christians. We need to listen to well established Christians, our pastors, our teachers. We need to do our best to be approved by God. We need to do all we can to make sure we pass the muster when God looks at our lives. We need to be workmen for Christ. We need to be honest workers.

We need to study God’s Word (the Bible) so that we know the truth. When we know the truth, we are tasked with “correctly handling” it. Some translations of the Bible use the phrase “rightly dividing” in place of “correctly handles”. Literally, the original Greek word was orthotomeo (or-tho-to-me’-ō) made from the words orthos, meaning “straight”, and temno, meaning “cut”. We should be studying God’s Word so that when we have questions, or someone asks questions of us, we can give them a “straight cut” of the word of truth.

In Matthew 28:18-20 and Mark 16:15 we find both our biggest challenge, and our biggest reward. As Christ’s followers, this is to share the good news of salvation with everyone we can. If you’re happy about having a friend like Jesus, you’ll want other people to get to know Him too. You will try to live a better, more meaningful, and more Christ-like life, and the people who you come in contact with every day will want to know what’s different in your life. They’ll see how no longer being at war with God has brought peace to you, and we should be as prepared as possible to give them a straight cut answer when they ask us about it.