He Compares Our Mission With His Own!

I love reading about the sending of the disciples.

In Luke 24, following His death and resurrection, Jesus appears “suddenly” to His disciples. 
He starts out by saying, “Peace by with you.”  (verse 36)
These words, no doubt, were intended to alleviate the fears that Jesus knew were plaguing their minds.  Oh that it would be just like our Savior to disquiet our thoughts and comfort our hearts!

We then see Him gently rebuking them by asking, “Why are you so frightened?  Why are your hearts filled with doubt?”  (verse 38)
He continues by asking them to uncover the proof of His physical presence by touching Him. (verse 39)

I can almost feel it as I read the words, “Still they stood there in disbelief, filled with joy and wonder.”  It’s a mixture of feelings… doubt, unbelief, shock, joy, wonder.

“Could this really be Him?  The one we loved and served and enjoined in ministry with?  Could it really be??”

Ahh… and then we see it.  Jesus opening their minds to understand the scriptures… calling to memory all that they had seen Him do while He was with them, “You are witnesses to all these things!”  (verse 48)

John’s recorded Gospel gives us a peak into the commission a little more personally.  In John 20:21 we read the words of Jesus that say, “As the Father has sent Me, so I am sending you.”
Oh, friends, what an honor!  How impossibly amazing and what a privilege it is that in His loving kindness, Jesus compares HIS mission to that of ours!

“AS the Father has sent ME, so I am sending YOU.”
“As” = “to the same degree, amount, or extent; similarly; equally”
It’s an invitation to do the same here that Jesus did!

In fact… take a look at this… the extension of our role is found in John 14:12, ““I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in Me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father.”

Greater works.  Not better… just more abundant given our reach as a united body of Christ!

It’s our purpose.  Our call.  The commission.  The assignment.
“Do as I do.  It is the Father’s will.”

So - what does that mean?
It means representing Him just as He represented the Father.  Representing His character… His nature… so to give those around us a beautiful illustration of who He is.  The disciples were living epistles of Jesus… He was to live in them.  YOU and I who belong to Jesus Christ have Him living in us, and so are to emulate His nature to the world.

It means that we receive authority from Him, in some measure, just as He received His Divine authority from His Father.

It means we are His messengers, the way He was the Messenger of the Father.  The perfect One who only DID what He saw the Father do, and only SAID what He heard the Father say.  Ahh yes, we are publishers of His great name.  “Make His name famous.”  (Psalm 96:3)

It means that we are to conduct our work - all of it - in the same manner in which He did.  “As unto the Lord.”  (Col 3:23)  It means maintaining a spirit of love, grace, benevolence, all for the glory of God!

It means being in the world but not being of it.  Seeking no portion from it, or making it our permanent habitat. 

When we consider our mission.. our purpose.. and all that we have been designed for… it’s overwhelming.  But if Jesus gave the assignment, know that it comes with the ability to complete it.  2 Peter 1:3 says, “By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know Him, the One who called us to Himself by means of His marvelous glory and excellence.”

It is a privilege and an honor to know that Jesus, in His radical kindness, compares our mission with His own!  And the whole of our lives ought to be committed to knowing this mission, understanding what is to be our ambition, and realizing the implication of our designed purpose.