The fourth aim of UESI is to present God’s missionary command and help students and graduates to discover and obey God’s will for them in world evangelization. Now to understand what God’s missionary command is all about, we need to turn to the New Testament, especially the Great Commission passages – (Mt.28:19,20; Mk.16:15; Lk.24:27 and Acts 1:8)
The starting point of the Great Commission is evangelism. Evangelism means communicating the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance and forgiveness will be declared in His name to all nations. This is the message Christ commissioned His disciples to carry to every nation. So, evangelism is an integral part of mission.
But mission is more than evangelism. As Jesus began His ministry he proclaimed, “The spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me preach good news to poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for prisoners and recovery of sight for blind, to release the oppressed and to proclaim the year of Lord’s favour.” (Lk.4:18,19)
Christ mission has the following components.
- Preaching good news to people who have a desirous heart.
- Proclaiming freedom from bondage.
- Giving sight to those who are blind.
- Releasing those who are in bondage.
- Proclaiming the year of Lord’s favour.
In a nutshell, our mission is to bring light and salvation to the ends of the earth. He said to His disciples that He is sending them just as the Father has sent him. So, we need to follow the incarnational model of our Lord while we fulfil His mission.
Jesus instructed his disciples to wait in Jerusalem so that they may receive the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who empowers the church to fulfil the task. The Holy Spirit gives us the power to tell the message and also helps us to develop a character that will demonstrate the authenticity of the message.
If we have received God’s gift of salvation, we cannot settle down in our comfort zone, forfeiting the only opportunity they will ever have to fulfil His mission. God calls us to leave our comfort zones and GO.
As Hudson Taylor said “A light that does not shine brightly at home has no business shining anywhere else”. So, involve in local missions so that as God leads, you can go to cross cultural situations either full time or vocational.
Many people think that mission means going to North India and working among tribal people or doing Bible translation work. Of course, they are all part of mission. We need to be open regarding going to the needy areas as full-time missionaries or vocational missionaries. But not only jungles but also cities need to be reached. As members of UESI, God has given us the important task of reaching out to post-matric students. We are lacking graduates as well as full time staff workers for taking the gospel to the campuses.
Probably the first step with regard to missionary involvement is praying for missionaries and mission fields.
The church in Jerusalem was a strong missionary church because it was a praying church. (Acts 4:24)
As EUs/EGFs let us dedicate ourselves for the missions and make the following commitment.
- I will pray regularly for mission
- I will give regularly for mission
- I will make efforts to visit the mission fields/missionaries, if possible, this year itself
Let us make ourselves available to God so that by all means we might save some. (1 Cor.9:22)
“God, I pray, light these idle sticks of my life and may I burn up for thee. Consume my life for it is Thine. I seek not a long life but a full one like yours, Lord Jesus”- Jim Elliot