Saturate

You are a perfect candidate for God to use to accomplish his purpose!

In fact, God not only commanded Israel to party in his name, he also required that the people give a significant portion of their money to make sure the celebration was done well. Can you imagine churches today taking offerings so they would be known as the people who threw the best parties?

God doesn’t just want us to feast or celebrate as his people. He wants us to remember him, keeping him central to the party by showing kindness, love, and mercy to all those who lack a reason to celebrate.

This is what Jesus does. Jesus makes life better. Jesus brings the better wine. He takes empty religion and ritual, and brings it to life for everyday people. He takes what many deem holy (like the water in the ceremonial cleansing jars) and brings it to the party. He breaks down the barrier between what people might call sacred and secular. Jesus makes all things sacred—including wine at a party.

Our job is not to be Jesus. Our job is to believe Jesus, depend on Jesus, and submit to Jesus working in and through us to accomplish his work. We are not meant to carry the weight of the world or the mission of Jesus on our shoulders. Jesus came to seek and save. He doesn’t expect us to become the saviors.

the person and work of Jesus is sufficient not only for the beginning of my Christian life, but also for the middle and the end.

Stop trying on your own. Cease striving and acknowledge that he is God and you are not.

Simply say: “Here’s my life, Jesus. Do your work in my life. Do your work through my life.”

Fear is an interesting thing. It’s not about what is happening. It’s about what we believe will happen. It’s connected to what we believe about the future.

What you love most, you also fear losing the most. And whatever threatens what you love most controls you.

Those first disciples radically recentered everything in their lives around Jesus, his teaching, and his mission. Their lives became all about Jesus! He was that important to them.

Jesus’s disciples had seen everything they needed to see. Jesus had taught them all he needed to teach them. And they had experienced all they needed to experience with Jesus! And yet, some were still doubting. This is good news for me! Though I’ve walked with Jesus for more than twenty-four years, I still struggle with doubts. Maybe you do as well.

That is what discipleship is all about. It is the ongoing process of submitting all of life to Jesus, and seeing him saturate your entire life and world with his presence and power. It’s a process of daily growing in your awareness of your need for him in the everyday stuff of life. It is walking with Jesus, being filled with Jesus, and being led by Jesus in every place and in every way.

him. He doesn’t need our vote of approval. He doesn’t want deciders. He wants disciples—people who are devoted to becoming more and more like him in everything, everyday.

Good. But that’s not all there is. Jesus doesn’t just want your afterlife. He wants your present life. He wants to live in and through you, changing you day by day. He came to give you abundant life now, and that life is found in him (John 10:10).

Most American Christians still believe they have to bring their friends to hear their pastor teach the Bible and proclaim the gospel. But a large percentage of people in our country will never go to a gathering on Sunday to hear someone preach.

That’s the beauty of a mission trip. The ones on the mission are often more profoundly impacted than anyone else. The mission happens to them. They go to make disciples, but they are the ones who are changed while on the mission. The mission itself is God’s tool for forming us.

I’m amazed at how often Christians want to experience the presence and power of God apart from the mission of God. I’m also surprised at how many people believe they can grow people up toward maturity in Christ apart from getting them involved in the mission of making disciples.

Life on mission is not just about being disciples, but also about making disciples who make disciples—and that can be learned only while on Jesus’s mission.

How many times have we tried to play the role of the Holy Spirit in another person’s life? Sure, there are times when we need to speak directly to one another about sin, but why not try speaking to God first, asking his Spirit to do the work? How will people ever learn to be led and filled with the Holy Spirit to overcome sin and temptation if we never allow space for him to do it?

We have the same Spirit. We have the same power. We can do the same things as the Holy Spirit fills, leads, and empowers us. Jesus said so himself before he taught his disciples about the Spirit: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do” (John 14:12). There are far too many people in the church who do not believe this truth, and as a result, they either lack the power for the mission or just disengage from Jesus’s mission to the world altogether.

Charles Spurgeon said, “Every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter.”1

Seeing church mainly as an event creates a significant problem for mission, because most people are very busy. And the more we fill our lives with church events and programs, the more we get pulled out of everyday life with people who don’t yet know Jesus. Besides, we will never be able to live out our identities of family, servants, and missionaries in one or two church events a week. It must involve everyday life. We need to see that life is the program, because people need to see what it means to follow Jesus in the everyday stuff of life.

that received the seed, the farmer who sowed the seed, the rains that fell on the soil, the sun that warmed the soil, the worker who harvested the wheat, the baker who turned it into bread, and the means they were given to purchase this bread. The meal was a time to pause, raise one’s hands high, and worship the Giver of the bread through thanksgiving.

Live in such a way that it would demand a “Jesus explanation.” In other words, you wouldn’t be able to explain what you do or why without needing to talk about Jesus. That’s what this group had done. There was no way to explain their actions without also needing to talk about Jesus.

Whom do you believe God is sending you to? Who around you needs to know Jesus? Is there a neighborhood or network of relationships where people need to be loved like family, served as Jesus served you, and told about the good news of salvation found in Jesus’s name?

You need to ask similar questions about your life together with some others: “Where are you sending us together? And who do you want us to serve, Jesus? Who needs to see what your kingdom looks like? Who needs to feel the real touch of Jesus through our hands—through us? Who needs to hear of the Father’s love for them available now through Jesus?”

Next, you need to ask: “What do they need? What aspects of Jesus’s love in tangible form should we show them by how we serve? How can we show them what life is like in God’s kingdom by the way we serve them?”