VI — APPLICATION
VI — HOW IMPORTANT IS KNOWING, UNDERSTANDING AND APPLYING THE MISSIO DEI ESSENTIALS?
If the sent ones fail to participate in God’s Missio Dei essentials, they should expect disaster and eternal consequences. Neglecting God’s Missio Dei leads to chaos and rebellion. This is poignantly illustrated in Israel’s failure as recorded in Judges 2:1-3 (see also Ezekiel 33).
Note how each one of the sending essentials was carried out by Christ. Christ did not fail God, His Father who sent Him. Note how each of the essentials was executed by the Holy Spirit, who also did not fail the Senders – God the Father and God the Son.
How important it is then, that the sent believers know, understand, and apply who they are in Christ! They are given a divine authority to represent Jesus. They are given the power and love of God to leave their comfort zones and go with the Gospel of Christ into the world with its diverse and ever-changing cultures, languages, social structures, relationships, values, beliefs, and world views!
24. John 17:15-19 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.
25. Judges 2:1-3 Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, “I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall break down their altars.’ But you have not obeyed my voice. What is this you have done? So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you” (emphasis mine).
