‘You Are Now Entering the Mission Field’
Our Mission
To present Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord to business and professional men and to develop Christian business and professional men to carry out the Great Commission.
1 Samuel 8.18 warns, in that day you will cry out because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the LORD won’t answer you in that day. When God chose the people of Israel to live as His people in the land He designated for them to live in, He did not provide them a government structure per se. No central authority was assigned, the priests would handle legal disputes, and chosen leaders of each ‘state’ (they were called tribes in the Bible), would punish wrong doers often with the help of the community in which the transgression had occurred.
The system God originally designed for Israel gave them immense personal freedom. God expected everyone to obey His laws, traditionally summarized in the ten commandments, and to live on their land producing what they needed and providing for others who needed help due to some misfortune (not laziness). A great system if you love freedom and personal responsibility. A terrible system if you want someone else to decide for your life so you can blame them when things go awry.
The founding fathers of the United States of America instituted a similar system though with limited central or national control and a civil judicial system rather than a religious one. The similarity between the people of Israel then and we ourselves today is the desire for a king, a leader, to come along and make the world right. Some thought we had such a leader in Barak Obama, but the nation only became more divided under his watch than at any time since the Martin Luther King era. Some thought electing Donald Trump as leader would mean the end of federal tyranny and the restoration of traditional American values. We seem a long way still from those ideals.
Both groups were wrong and are wrong because a leader cannot change a nation if the people are not willing to change. A leader cannot make a country better by his own virtue alone. No matter the intent of the leader or his decrees, if the people will not do what is right the nation will continue to deteriorate. This is what we see today. We see people everywhere wanting change that will make for more equity, peace and justice yet the people making such demands use violence, intolerance and discrimination to force their will upon another. Recently google fired an employee of the company because of his divergent opinion (read here). University students protest to safe places those whose opinions differ from the instruction they received from their professors. Riots and civil unrest seems to happen every weekend somewhere in this country now.
We can blame our leaders for problems but the problems we are experiencing wont end until we ourselves do what is right. We must decide individually to do the right things. When enough of us choose what is right then the collective will be doing what is right. In this way the nation will be doing what is right and when that happens, it really doesn’t matter who the leader is but most likely he will be such a person who supports what is good and right because he was elected from a good and upright people.
His Opportunities
- Next CBMC Special Luncheon October 5th. More information and registration HERE
- CEO's, are you looking for a private group of fellow business owners for encouragement, support, and advice? CBMC offers such a group. Contact Mike at mwinter@cbmc.com for more information.
- CBMC needs your help to continue its ministry to men in the marketplace. Please DONATE
MONDAY MANNA
A service to the business community
A Publication of CBMC International
August 21, 2017
‘You Are Now Entering the Mission Field’
by Robert J. Tamasy
When you hear the term “mission field,” what comes to mind? Typically we think of a distant land, with people living in an alien culture, speaking an unfamiliar, even strange language. Have you ever thought about the mission field that exists right outside your office or cubicle, or the people you will encounter during your next sales call?
Years ago, a friend of mine, Ken Johnson, established a ministry to business owners and top executives. One of his goals was to help each member recognize that they were missionaries – in their office buildings, manufacturing plants, and sales territories. In fact, Ken had little signs printed that he gave to everyone affiliated with his Christian Network Teams. The signs read, “You are now entering the mission field.”
Nowhere does the Bible specify that the only people who qualify as “missionaries” are those under the direct authority of a church or mission agency, or that their income must be generated solely through charitable contributions. For that reason, a business or professional person working with individuals who do not claim to be followers of Jesus Christ can rightly consider himself or herself a missionary.
When Jesus commissioned His followers near the end of His time on earth, He directed them to “therefore go and make disciples of all nations…teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20). Nowhere in this command did He indicate this must be done only within an institutional, religious context.
Similarly, in Acts 1:8 Jesus declares where serving others in His name should take place: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” In saying this, Jesus was describing the entirety of the known world at that time. He was instructing His followers, “Tell people about Me wherever you go, whether it is in the office next door, your neighborhood, across the city, or in a totally different part of the world.”
Thinking about this, it indicates that regardless of the source of our incomes, we are charged to serve as representatives of Jesus Christ – what CBMC calls “marketplace ambassadors” – wherever we go. We do not need a specific call to leave our professions or move to another part of the world. As someone has wisely said, God wants us to get involved with other people where we are – because we obviously cannot serve God where we are not.
Over its nearly 90 years of existence, CBMC has seen many thousands of men and women come to know Jesus Christ in a life-changing way, and many of them have grown to become faithful and zealous ambassadors for Him not only in their own cities and nations, but also wherever they travel and conduct business. A literal translation of Matthew 28:19 is, “As you are going, make disciples (followers) of Jesus.” Wherever we go – wherever opportunities God provides take us – we are to serve Him and reach out to others with His Good News.
© 2017. Robert J. Tamasy has written Business at Its Best: Timeless Wisdom from Proverbs for Today’s Workplace; Tufting Legacies; coauthored with David A. Stoddard, The Heart of Mentoring, and edited numerous other books, including Advancing Through Adversity by Mike Landry. Bob’s website is www.bobtamasy-readywriterink.com, and his biweekly blog is: www.bobtamasy.blogspot.com.
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