All In The Family!

The sun is shining brightly today! Jennifer is home from her month-long mission trip to South Africa. She was talking a mile a minute on the way home last night but was snoozing soundly as I left this morning. I can’t wait to hear more about her trip.

I don’t suppose there is a father in the world any more proud of his children than am I. Jennifer and her compassion for children and for the Lord, Jessica and her passion for helping people heal from surgery and/or disease; and to have them both here alongside Shelia and I here at Faith.  It’s great that they went into the family business. Don’t miss what I just said; I suppose there are a couple of ways to interpret that statement. Yes, their dad is a minister and thus in the “people” business as are they. But it’s bigger than that.

Those of us who know Jesus are part of a family, the family of God. As a part of that family we are called and equipped (and expected) to take care of the family and to actively pursue those to adopt into the family. We are love one another sacrificially (there’s a whole lesson right there!). We are to see people as God sees them, as sheep having no shepherd and to move with compassion toward them, sharing with them the love of the Father.

Mission work and mission trips are a wonderful way to do that. I am so happy (much more now that she’s home!) that Jennifer had the awesome experience to travel to a foreign country to share God’s love. I’m looking forward to the Navajo trip in a couple of weeks! It’s another awesome opportunity to share the love of God. It was great to see missionary friends and meet new missionaries going out into the world to share that love at the ABA meeting in Dallas a couple of weeks ago, and then how awesome was it to be involved in VBX right here in Levy last week!

That’s the key friends. You don’t have to go halfway around the world to serve God. There are people within a stone’s throw from wherever you are who need Jesus too! Not everyone can take a mission trip right now but everyone can share Jesus, right here, right now!

The greatest mission field you can know might be your own parents, or siblings, or even your own children. What a blessing to know they are part of the family of God too! Then reach out to extended family and friends, neighbors, and ultimately people who God places in your path; divine appointments we so often overlook.

Yes, we are to “go ye into all the world”. This world is a big place and there are people literally everywhere who need Jesus. God tells us to start in “Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and into the uttermost parts of the world”. Ask God to ignite a passion for the lost in your heart, give way to the compassion that God wants to spread through you as His child and get involved in the mission, the mission of the Gospel and let’s be about our Father’s business—right here, right now!