The term “missional” has become a popular one in our culture. To be missional means having an intentional purpose, a significant task. Companies create mission statements either to define what they do or remind them of what they want to do. Military and special-forces units move from one mission to the next with strict objectives and goals.
When the mission is rescuing a lost person, the rescue team must accomplish several things:
- Identify the location of the lost, missing or captive person
- Deploy to that position
- Engage with the enemies holding the person
- Rescue and recover the person
- Provide medical care or treatment needed
- Safely deliver the hostage or victim to a place of restoration, rehabilitation and rest
- Finally, reunite the person with loved ones.
This is the mission of Christ: To search, rescue and restore.
This is the good that God is up to in our lives!
God’s great rescue of us is essential to His great restoration in us. Our initial rescue is by the Father who sends the Son to ransom and recover those He loves–us! Not only is it His heart to redeem us, but even more His heart is to restore us.
John Eldredge describes this in his book, Waking the Dead:
So we now receive a new nature and a new heart, our second man. We have been made alive with the life of Christ. Just as we received our sinful nature from Adam, so we now receive a good and holy nature from Christ (Romans 5:14-19). It has always been God’s plan not just to forgive you, but to restore you!
God’s Kingdom (the Kingdom of Light) is the one in which we have always been intended to live and get Life. God created us to be at our best and settle the issues of who we are by being with Him and living with Him, the King of kings missionally pouring in His Life into ours.
What a glorious thing.
Jesus’ life was a declaration of whom and what is most important. He fights for us that we might know Him, not just theologically but experientially. It is in the experiencing that we find Life. The offer of the Gospel is much more than forgiveness. Don’t get me wrong...forgiveness and reconciliation are great things, but they are only the significant means to an end. The end and our beginning is Life; and the Larger Gospel is nothing less than a great invitation and provision to Life.
When we are rescued from the dominion of darkness and brought into the Kingdom of the Son whom God loves and in whom we have Life (1 Peter 2: 8-10), then true Life begins. We are brought from one kingdom to the other, from death to LIFE.
And the best part of all: it continues forever.
In your time alone with God, reflect on the following passages, which describe why Jesus Came- HIS Search and Rescue MISSION:
- Luke 4:18 Heal the broken hearted, sight for the blind, freedom for the prisoners (Isaiah 61)
- Luke 19:10 Seek and Save that which was Lost
- John 10:10 That we might have LIFE
- Matthew 20:28 Give His life as a Ransom
- Galatians 1:4 Rescue us from the present evil age
- Colossians 1:13 Rescue us from the dominion of darkness
- 1 Peter 5:10 Restore Us to Himself and make us strong, firm and steadfast
