Thoughts from Ryan’s Message August 14, 2015

Our Mission

God is all-knowing. Therefore, he knew in advance that we who believe were destined to be his sons… his children according to the good pleasure of His will. Those who have received the Spirit of God can understand the will of God. However, the natural man, without the spirit of God receiveth not the things of the spirit because they are spiritually discerned. Misunderstanding the will of God results from inability to understand the reality of the spiritual realms of light and darkness. God has called each believer in Christ to be a leader in the spiritual battle. In Joshua 13:6 The the Lord said to Joshua that there were large portions of the Promised Land that Israel had not rightfully taken. Many years earlier, Joshua and Caleb were the only two of twelve spies who had given a good report about Israel’s ability to take over the land of Canaan. God had promised Israel that he would give Israel the land of Canaan but ten of the twelve spies did not believe God’s promise. They believed that the giants in the land and the armies of the unbelievers were bigger and more powerful than the power of God and the veracity of his promise. These ten died with the rest of this generation of the children of Israel. They perished, wandering in wilderness for forty years. However God had spared Joshua and Caleb who were now growing old. According to Joshua 16:10 when Israel finally entered the Promised Land, they did not dislodge the Canaanites… they did not drive them out completely. Instead, contrary to the Word of God, Israel made the Canaanites their slaves. In Joshua 18:3 Joshua said to Israel, “How long will you wait before you take possession of the Promised Land?” In this day and time, God still asks this question of his children who have been born again.

Caleb’s tribe of Judah endured. God always calls his people as missionaries on a mission: to endure and to drive out the spiritual darkness according to the light of the Word of Truth. This mission has not changed. Today, He has called us to reclaim our neighborhoods for the truth of the Word of God. He has called us to be his ambassadors: representatives of our heavenly homeland. The land of our new birth is heaven… we have been born again from above and from God’s eternal perspective, we are seated in heavenly places in Christ. We have been sent from above as ambassadors to represent our heavenly kingdom in a foreign land. We have been commissioned in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation to shine as lights. Since we are ambassadors, our houses are embassies… outposts for heaven in a world of darkness. As God said to Joshua before he took possession of the promised land, every place that thy foot shall tread upon, I have already given to you. Therefore, be thou strong and of a good courage, for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. In this foreign land, as God’s ambassadors, we have “diplomatic immunity.” Our homes are embassies, a piece of heaven in a foreign land. According to Second Corinthians, “now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. For He hath made him to be the perfect sin sacrifice on our behalf that we may be made the righteousness of God in him.”

Jesus Christ has made the ultimate payment for our sins to justify God’s righteous judgement by the supreme sacrifice of his innocent blood on our behalf. For by grace are ye saved though faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, (through Jesus having paid the price) not of works lest any man should boast. Because of the grace he has given us, we have been empowered by the power of the holy spirit to stand fast in the midst of the spiritual battle and having done all to stand. As his emissaries, he has called us in Christ’s stead to set the captives free and to preach the acceptable day of the Lord’s salvation.

We have been called to take back territory from Satan’s powers of darkness. When God calls us to battle against spiritual wickedness from on high, we stand in his power, armed with his spiritual armor. Therefore, resist the devil and he will flee from you. The adversary’s tactics never change… his strategy is to divide and conquer. He pits factions against factions: women against men, children against parents, those in government against those they govern. Satan’s powers of the darkness of this world are the root cause of division. Reconciliation means to make peace: to bring back together that which has been separated. Peace is only available through the prince of peace. Jesus said, my peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid.

The purpose of the armor of God is to stand against the schemes of the devil, and having done all to stand. Luke 4 records a confrontation between Jesus Christ and the devil himself. Satan’s proposition to Jesus was to “bow down and worship me and I will give you power over all the kingdoms of this world. They are mine to give because they were relinquished (by Adam) to me.” The key to standing against the enemy is to wield the sword of the spirit which is the Word of Truth. Jesus’s responded from the Word of God, “thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”

In the book of Acts Chapter 16 Paul caused a great disturbance in Phillippi when he cast a devil spirit out of a woman who had made a fortune for her masters by fortune-telling using a “spirit of divination.” When the light confronts the darkness there are always casualties of the spiritual warfare. Acts 19 records similar incidents about Paul’s spiritual battles in the city of Ephesians. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness from on high. As in the book of Acts, we have been called to shine the light of the truth of the Word of God in the darkness of our neighborhoods. As God’s emissaries, we have been called with a mission from God to deliver a message from our Commander in Chief. Not only has he called us to deliver the message, he has also called us to be the message… as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ’s stead be ye reconciled unto God.

We have been given a mission from God. Therefore let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father which is in heaven. God has called us to the front lines of the spiritual battle as his soldiers in the “charge of the Light Brigade”… Our battle cry is “Give ’em Heaven!”

May God richly bless you,
Your brother in Christ,
Michael