The Mystery

 "I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings." I Corinthians 9:23......"In the mission of God, you can never sacrifice more than you'll receive.....Remember that when it's time to give, pray, or go. The mystery of the mission is waiting to be discovered."  Chris Tiegreen

Jesus said that in this world we would encounter suffering. We live in a fallen world where death reigns, albeit temporarily. We will not be exempt from its effects. This will be especially true for those who have given their life to Him, though many think that they are. Suffering has no place in their belief system, which is strange as it certainly had a place in Christ's. And He uses it for His glory and our good.

If you have set your heart to follow wherever He leads, you can be certain that He will lead you into the "valley of the shadow of death." There will be pain there. Sometimes deep pain. We must remember though that it is only the shadow death. He is the Lord of Life and He will not permit what is in that valley to destroy us or cause us permanent harm. Moreover, if we will trust Him in that valley, He will take us ever deeper into the mystery of who He is, and who we are in Him.

The Father has always said of Himself that He is covered in mystery, but it is a mystery He means for us to unravel and discover ever more about. A great part of eternity will be about going deeper and deeper into His mystery, but the discovery begins now, and part of the mystery is that He chooses to show Himself most clearly to us in the place of darkness. Likely that's because in the dark, we can see little of anything, which makes for a perfect opportunity to see Him. If the eyes of our heart are searching for Him, then He will use the darkness to blind us to all that has distracted us, kept us from seeing Him, so that our heart eyes may now see the One that all the world's darkness cannot keep us from seeing, if our hearts truly desire to.

The people who have most impacted my life for Him are those who have suffered the most for Him. The riches of what they discovered of Him in the darkness and pain were treasures for them to share. Treasures that they could not have known in any other way. Someone once asked if we were leaving "footsteps worth following." I have found that the footsteps that have been the most precious to me have been those left by those that have traveled through the valley of the shadow of death. Friends and mentors who followed Him onto mission fields where their faithfulness cost the loss of a child or a mate. Others who, in walking the path of pastoral ministry, suffered hardships that tested the very foundation of their faith, but who emerged stronger and more in love with Him than ever. This is the great mystery. Our enemy, the devil, would have us renounce Him due to the pain, but it was the pain that drove us into His arms, His life, and His love. It was there that His mystery was, and is revealed.

To follow Him is to be a life mission, but the mission is not to accomplish something or reach a goal or achieve a result. That may be a part of it all, but the crux of the mission is to know Him in the deepest levels of intimacy. To unravel the mystery of a Father God who longs for His children to know Him. This will be costly. It won't happen along sunshiney paths. It happens in what one called "the shadowlands, where light and darkness clash." Scripture tells us that He often comes near to us "covered in darkness," and in Exodus, it's written that Moses "entered into the darkness, where God was." Darkness isn't darkness to Him, and if we will cling to Him, we will discover and know what He longs for us to know, but few of us ever do.

The great writer and believer Francis Shaeffer said, "Modern Christians are so committed to personal peace and affluence that they never get to really know God." They never even begin to discover the depths of holy mystery He means to reveal to us. The pathway is frightening to our eyes of flesh, but not so to the spiritual eyes of our heart. May we not fear the mystery that is our God, for in that mystery is a love and a life beyond all that we ever believed possible. Let us enter in, no matter how daunting the way appears.

Blessings,
Pastor O