As the Father sent me, I also send you.
John 20:21
As is a little word with huge implications. What does it mean to be sent as Jesus was sent? The dictionary defines as like this: “used in comparisons to refer to the extent or degree of something.” Jesus is comparing. To the same extent or degree that the Father sent Jesus, He is sending us.
The Father sent Jesus to represent Him. He sent Jesus with authority, power, and needed resources to accomplish all that the Father had purposed. Jesus does the same. Just as Jesus trusted the Father for needed resources to accomplish His purpose, we must trust Jesus for the needed resources to accomplish the mission given to us. Jesus is loved by the Father, and we are loved by Jesus. Jesus is the Son of God, and we are sons of God (Gal. 3:26). Jesus lived on the earth for His Father’s glory and to accomplish His Father’s will. We must live to glorify Jesus and accomplish His will. Just as the world needed Jesus to show them the Father, the world needs the church to show them what Jesus is like. When Jesus came to earth from the Father, He made a way to the Father (John. 14:6).
Everywhere we go, we are representatives of the kingdom of God making available the kingdom of God to others. Jesus announced and displayed the availability of the kingdom of God. We are to announce and display the availability of the King and His kingdom.
Will you lay down your rights to your own life as Jesus did to display His heart? Will you believe the words of Jesus, “As the Father sent me, so I send you”? Take a moment and imagine how your life would be different by daily receiving the mission to make available the kingdom of God.
AS we keep our love on, we demonstrate Jesus because we are staying in Christ’s love for us to display His love for others. We are incapable to maintain this with out God’s love coursing through us, but as we allow God’s love to course through us we are incapable of containing it in ourselves because it is so much bigger than us. Therefore, if we are able to contain it and give it only to those we favor, we are only operating out of our own shallow stores of our own version of God’s love. Ours is a drug store knockoff of the original.
Good insight Melissa. God desires to come be Himself in and through us.