OMS Canada
  • Home
    • About Us
    • Where We Serve
    • Career Opportunities
  • PRAY
    • Prayer Warrior
    • Prayerline
  • GO
    • By Country
    • By Skill
  • Give
    • Projects
    • Missionaries
    • Planned Giving
  • More...
    • Mercy Kidz
    • OMS International Ministires
    • Blog
    • FAQ's
    • Resources
  • Contact Us
  • For the Church
  • Outreach Magazine
  • Global Impact Report

OMS BLOG

Picture
CANADA

SATAN'S STRATEGY: CONVINCE CHRISTIANS THAT MISSIONS IS OPTIONAL

9/27/2021

3 Comments

 
Picture
​Hello, and welcome back to our series on Spiritual Warfare and Missions (SWAM). If you missed the first couple of posts you really should click here to read them first. And be reminded that this series is based on the book by Jerry Rankin and Ed Stetzer called Spiritual Warfare and Missions.
 
Last week we talked about Satan’s strategy to persecute believers and the church. The Bible makes it clear that persecution and suffering will accompany the proclamation of the gospel in a world hostile to a Christian witness and also that the suffering will be used by God to advance His kingdom.
 
This week we will see that Satan also uses the idea that missions is somehow optional to rob God of the glory that He is due.
 
Satan continues to work through godless world leaders and totalitarian governments to keep countries closed to missionaries and restrict a Christian witness, but in this era of modern communication and global commerce, he is unsuccessful in barricading countries against the life-transforming message of Jesus Christ.
 
His strategy to obscure remote people groups from our awareness is failing as sociologists and researchers have identified the ethnic language groups of the world. Their location and worldviews are known and are systematically being penetrated with gospel witness.
 
Even persecution and suffering is feeding the growth of the church and expanding access to the Christian message. Satan does not understand the power of love that motivates the sacrificial commitment and the power of the convictions of believers willing to suffer for their faith.
 
One of the authors says that he will say to one of his daughters something like Sweetheart, will you help me with the dishes? At face value, it seems as if there is an option built into my request. In reality, he is making a gracious dictate to his little girl. The asking is actually directing.
 
God works similarly with us. He invites us to participate in His mission. But we never find the Scriptures to list is as optional. Because He desires to operate relationally with us, God allows us to make a decision. Rest assured that Satan will seize upon this dynamic at every turn to convince us that missional activity is an option that can and should be denied.
 
God’s Word calls Satan the god of this age (2 Cor. 4:4). He leverages a tremendous asset when he works outside the church in the world to hinder the gospel. In the world, he is on his home court. However he is much too cunning to depend solely on closed countries, undiscovered people groups, persecution of believers, and cultures hostile to the gospel. He uses other strategies inside the Christian community to deter the advancement of God’s kingdom and to hinder believers and churches from ever deploying to vast pockets of lostness around the world.
 
In trying to convince Christians that missions is optional, he diverts churches to focus on their own programs and to see their mission as reaching people for their own church. If he can persuade Christians that reaching the nations has little or no relevancy or urgency to their own life, he has raised a barrier that makes other barriers obsolete. Who, then, will be willing to leave their own comfort and security to take the gospel and declare God’s salvation to the peoples of the world?
 
This isn’t simply semantics. The church needs to hear a different descriptor than “missions volunteer.” The volunteer is given high regard in our culture. Why? Because volunteers do something that is not required of them. They work although they are not obligated. Volunteers contribute selflessly to a cause greater than themselves. What heroes!
 
If the devil can convince us that engaging friends, communities, and nations with the gospel is something we really do not have to do, he wins. If he makes the smallest step of Christian service seem heroic, he creates barriers to moving outside our comfort zones. We will serve the Lord and the church on an intuitive, feel-good level only.
 
Paul would never have considered himself a volunteer. His burden for men, women, and children drove him far beyond volunteering for Christ. Missions was not a voluntary act for Paul. It was compulsory. He describes it this way: “I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome” (Romans 1:14-15).
 
The language of volunteerism would be unfamiliar with the deeply burdened missionary apostle. Paul felt obligated to do something about the lostness around him. He owed them an opportunity to hear the good news of Jesus. Also, you see that the obligation and debt that he felt produced urgency and courage. In the same passage he said, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16).
 
In every organization, there are a myriad of forces at work, but two stand out. They can be illustrated by a yo-yo. If you swing a yo-yo around in a circle, two forces are at work (in a non-technical sense). The first is the centrifugal force that pulls the yo-yo away from your hand and pushes it outward. This force represents the missionary nature of our work. The second force is centripetal, the force that draws things inward, the force exerted by the string. This force is necessary to care for the core, and the temptation is to make that the focus. One force spreads, the other centralizes.
 
For churches today, the choice is to keep pushing toward missionary work as it radiates in a larger circle or to meet the needs of the tether by pulling it inward. The moment a church decides that missions is an optional activity, the tether becomes the focus and the radius of the work begins a rapid decline.
​People on mission have made an important discovery. People on mission do not go to church. People on mission are the church. Being on mission for Jesus is a way of life that frees us from the busyness of doing “Christian” activities. It is a choice to be mission-shaped and Jesus-centred disciples living for the gospel in their communities and the world. Mission-shaped means God is bending me to have His heart for the world. Jesus-centred means Hs is the focal point of my life. “For in him we live and move and have our being” is how Paul describes it in a sermon preached in Athens (Acts 17:28). Like the original twelve disciples, we do life with Jesus daily.
 
Mission-shaped and Jesus-centred people change the world. What does that look like? John gives us a clue. “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith” (1 John 5:4). The question is: Will we conquer the world? Or will the world conquer us?
 
So let’s become more mission-shaped and Jesus-centred and take the gospel to our neighbours and the world.
3 Comments
Mavis Wanczyk
2/11/2024 01:06:09 am

Being the winner of a multi-million dollar lottery certainly will be a life-changing event for almost every single lottery winner. My name is Mavis Wanczyk from Chicopee, Massachusetts, the famous PowerBall lottery winner of $758 million (£591m). I know many people would wonder how I had won the lottery. Would you believe me if I told you that I did it with spell casting? I met this famous spell caster known as Doctor Odunga and he was the one who did it for me. As shocking as it was to me, my famous comment to the press was “ I’m going to go and hide in my bed.” Never did I believe that Doctor Odunga made me wealthy overnight. If you want to have your chance of winning and becoming very wealthy just like me, contact Doctor Odunga at [email protected] OR WHATS-APP HIM at +2348167159012 and you will be lucky. Thanks for reading and hope to see you at the top


FIX THE FOLLOWING PROBLEMS TO ALL ACROSS THE
GLOBE ON:

Get your ex back spell
Lottery Spell
Love/Reunion Spell
Pregnancy Spell
Protection Spell
Freedom From Prison Spell
Marriage spell
Killing/Revenge spell
Healing/Cure spell


Contact him for any of these today at:
EMAIL: [email protected] OR Call and WHATS-APP HIM +2348167159012

Reply
william wirtz
8/12/2024 10:12:37 pm

I recommend you to get your herbal medicine through Herbal Miracle Medicine . He cured me from my herpes outbreak and now I am free . All thanks for your care and giving me my life back . If you are suffering from any illness you can get your medication from Doc Moses Buba on his .
email him on ( [email protected] )
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61559577240930
website:https://bubaherbalmiraclem.wixsite.com/website

Reply
Lucy Miller
2/21/2025 08:15:08 am

I cannot identify myself as an "HIV Survivor" because I'm not surviving. I have conquered the battle of HIV with natural alternatives. I have broken down the walls of stigma, I have fought against discrimination, I have risen above rejections and criticisms. It has been 12 years of Victory, under the supervision of Doctor Muna Remedies. If I can find cure, comfort and healing with Doctor Muna's natural herbal products, anyone with chronic disease or viral infections can get cure too. [email protected] deserves to be spread all over for the general public, Whatsapp +2347035449257

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018

    Categories

    All
    Am I Called To Be A Missionary?
    Commands Of Christ
    Discipleship
    Excitment In Estonia
    For The Church
    God's Heart For The Nations
    Growing In Christ
    Habits Of Grace
    Happenings In Haiti
    Musings Of Mozambique
    Prayer
    Radio/Television 4VEH
    Seminary News
    Spiritual Disciplines
    Spiritual Warfare And Missions
    Stories From The Field
    Understanding Missions
    Value Of Legacy Giving

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
    • About Us
    • Where We Serve
    • Career Opportunities
  • PRAY
    • Prayer Warrior
    • Prayerline
  • GO
    • By Country
    • By Skill
  • Give
    • Projects
    • Missionaries
    • Planned Giving
  • More...
    • Mercy Kidz
    • OMS International Ministires
    • Blog
    • FAQ's
    • Resources
  • Contact Us
  • For the Church
  • Outreach Magazine
  • Global Impact Report