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First
Entry
Just
introducing a thought here to begin kicking around from time to
time. It's something we're keenly interested in and have been
thinking through for years since volunteering a little of our
time at a missions organization.
The
questions we're challenging ourselves with are these:
If
we were leaving our home country to go to another country to live as
missionaries and ambassadors for Christ - knowing we would be
there for the
specific
purpose and priority of leading people to the Lord,
discipling them, planting churches, and pouring out our lives
for them - what would we need to take with us? What specific
list of things would
we come up with to prepare our home and our life for this? (This assumes
that only true
necessities to fulfill the above would be able to be
transported to the new place.)
After
coming up with that list - the next challenging questions:
Do
we have more than those things in our home today?
If
so, what are they, and why do we have them?
What
priorities and purpose in life do our possessions show we have?
What
changes in our home are we willing and able to make toward the
goal of making our home an ambassador's home right where we are
today?
We
don't live a particularly austere kind of life (as in severe,
without ornament or adornment), but we have been paring down
for years (more on this at another time). We're still far from
being down to nubbins, but we are aiming at a greatly simplified
way of life.
We
work a lot, study a lot, and play a lot, and are extremely
grateful for the time in history our Lord has placed us, as well
as our location and the abundance of things He has given us to live our life. We
know we are exceedingly blessed!
But
we have some goals, and we're thinking through certain issues
related to those things we have and the time we spend on their
upkeep, what our purpose in life is (or should be), and what our
priorities are - especially (for these posts) as pertains to our
home.
Second
Entry
There
have been moments in the midst of our country's most recent war
(in Iraq) when our kind Lord used something to remind us that
He, His kingdom, and His agenda are what we're to continue
concentrating on (and increase in).
One of those moments came while watching an
interview on a public television station of a gentleman who was
an ambassador from another country. He was asked what he thought
of this and that.
What he said immediately caught our attention. He
said it really didn't matter what he thought,
because he was there to represent his home country's
positions to the host country he was in, so that his home
country would be better understood.
We knew this is how we as Christians should
be living and responding to others since we're called to represent our King
Jesus here on earth. We're His ambassadors, sent out to
represent Him, to speak of His concerns, and
accurately convey His view on things.
These are excellent thoughts to follow through. The reality of actually
being Christ's ambassadors - which we are - forces us
to evaluate our life, how we live it, and how we respond to
others in view of what Christ's ambassador ought to look and
sound and act like.
What
things can (and should) we do to accomplish an authentic
ambassador's life?
More
entries to come soon…
© 2007 John and Kim Namestnik
www.givengrace.com
Permission is granted to copy and distribute this
material - if it's kept intact and not changed in any
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