Living Sent

“The seventy-two returned with joy…” Luke 10:17

In what must have been quite a favourable season for the message of Jesus, seventy-two men sent out by Jesus returned full of joy. We don’t actually get a full report of what the seventy-two got up to (we just get Jesus’ instructions and feedback) but I can imagine and relate to why they may have been joyful. Some of my most exciting experiences in life have been when I have been “sent.”

They went out in obedience to Jesus and the purpose that He challenged them with. There’s nothing like knowing that you’re doing what you should be, something of significance. Jesus told them to travel lightly and to follow favour. He told them not to take it personally when people rejected His message. They came back having enjoyed the spiritual authority that came with using Jesus’ Name.

Just as the Father sent Jesus into the world, so He sent out His followers. I have always enjoyed a sense of clarity, challenge and fulfilment when I have felt that sense of being sent out, entrusted to bring Him to others. Inside an established church we can easily become distracted by petty issues and offences, we are loaded up with the tools and resources but they remain largely unused.

My faith makes more sense when the difference between the church and the world is obvious. I know what it’s like to be surrounded by a population of millions who have no idea what Jesus has done for them. It can be overwhelming, but at the same time the call becomes more clear, God’s Word, with issues of salvation, persecution, multiplication, just makes more sense in that context.

CT Studd, famous cricketer and missionary, put it this way, “Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.”

This is not so much a matter of geography or demographics but it is a matter of perspective. Anyone who has put their hand up to Christ’s Commission has this opportunity to live on the cutting edge of His Kingdom.

The very first thing Jesus said as He sent the seventy-two out was, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few” (Luke 10:2).

Are you ready to get working? Would you like to have the joy, the satisfaction and the challenge of living ‘sent’?