Extracted from an email from Dean VanDruff on personal MISSION.
Over the years, I have often challenged people to consider their "core message", what God has put in them as an emphasis.I ask "if you could jump into someone else's body (that you love and are praying for) and impart one insight--give one example of obedience, allow one godly passion to course through them--WHAT WOULD IT BE?"
In other words, what has God shown YOU of his nature that words "get in the way of" (and everything else in this sin-sick world) but that is bursting to get out?
Not that we should be one-trick ponies, but that we would do well to know why God has us here and to focus on the grace he has given us to the building up of others.
1 Cor 1:17 (NAS) For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel...What is our principal insight, message, or mission in life? What is the ray of the light of Christ that reflects most purely off of us? What is the basic instinct of faith God has deposited in us? What do we have of God that we can "feed" to others? For what earthly reason has Christ "taken hold of us"?For me, this is Repentance. Repentance is the core of ALL of my teaching. It is the first study on the Acts 17:11 Bible Study Home Page, and what each of the following teachings is merely an application of. It is this that the Lord gave me as a basic message. It is this message that I am most passionate about, and I burn with zeal to impart it to others. I feel God's presence most vividly when I am laboring thus.
For Laura, it is Forgiveness. For Reggie, it is the Sovereignty of God. For Mark, it is the Fullness of the Spirit. For Joy, it is Death to Self. For Dan, it is Salvation. For Gary, it is Service. For Don, it is Worship. For Joseph, it is the New Wineskin.
I cherish these saints all the more because they know what "gift they wish to impart" to me, and I look forward to their encouragement in these areas.
If Gary could just jump in someone's body and show them the JOY of service. If Don could just get people to see what he sees of God...
What is this for you?
Not that we (or you in however you would answer this) are perfect examples of these qualities, nor even that advanced. But nonetheless, this is what God has put "in us" and we would do well to "fan into a flame" what God has imparted.
Let us enjoy our place in the body of Messiah in the bounty of the Holy Spirit, who is rich in grace and able to supply all things to us for our benefit.
Phil 3:12-16 (NIV) Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
