Living Daily in God's Mission

Every day when I wake up, I have a new opportunity to give myself away to God. By giving myself away to God, I mean that I am intentionally making a decision to try to put myself in the background and prioritize my role in God's mission to redeem the world. So what does that look like for me on a daily basis? As a husband, I know that God has blessed me with Julie and I need to love her and honor her as much as I can. Every single day is a new opportunity to do that. One of the greatest privileges of my life has been to be married to Julie, and it's my responsibility to love her well every single day that God gives me to be with her. As a father, it is my responsibility to love Kyra and Sierra well. My daughters are an amazing gift from God! They deserve much more from me than to just be provided for and disciplined. They need me... to engage them with my heart, to love them well, consistently, every single day. My relationship with my daughters is one of the greatest examples that they have of how their Heavenly Father loves them, so it's important that I engage them with my heart as much as I can. As a pastor, it is important for me to give myself away to others by serving them with all of my heart. God did not give me the influence of being a pastor for me to abuse it by giving people lists of duties and obligations to be met. God wants me to care for people's hearts... a lot of people and a lot of hearts... as he presents opportunities. In helping people to grow closer to God, I'm also growing closer to the Lord myself. Being a pastor is not about people serving me, it's about me serving God and others in order that Jesus can work through me to accomplish his purposes. This purpose is different every single day. I could be spending time with businessmen in powerful places, or with single mom's in the inner city who might be struggling with the grind of urban poverty. No matter who God brings into my life, it is my great privilege to be able to care for their hearts and draw people into a more intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. As a mentor, God has given me the amazing privilege to be able to spend a great deal of time with some of the toughest kids in the city of Pittsburgh. God has shown me that he wants me to sacrifice for my mentees with my time and attention so that he can work through me to achieve his purposes in their lives. I don't just spend time with my mentees... I am a strong male influence in their lives who helps to cast new visions for them. I am helping my mentees to learn more about God's mission in this world, and there is no greater cause than that. As a neighbor in Homewood, every day God has me looking out for how to increase levels of shalom in my community. God has asked me to serve my neighborhood and my city, so I do. It's that simple. People ask me all the time why I moved my family to Homewood, and the answer is so simple... God asked me to do it so I did it. Sometimes we need to take risks, act, and be obedient when God asks us to do something that doesn't make sense and then we trust God to take care of the details when we get into the adventure. That's where life is found... in those places where God asks us to give ourselves away to others and the calling doesn't make any rational sense. We live in the age of reason, and God is a God of profound mystery. Life won't make any sense if we always wait to make to most rational decision. That's how the world operates... without faith. As Christians, we are not of this world. We belong to God. And that should shape how we live every single day that we wake up to face the world. God is on mission to reach every corner of this world. As followers of Jesus we all have a unique role to play in that mission on a daily basis, and only a heart that is fully engaged with our Lord and yielded to his purposes will be able to discern what God requires of us. We must embrace risk as the central theme of our lives. We must fully engage with others... not just the people we love, but even our enemies. God wants to work through us in all circumstances. There is no better place to be than living right in the stream of God's mission on a daily basis.