Ben Cotten - Latest Comments in Being a Missional Christian

Re: Being a Missional Christian

ded — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 06:35:34 -0000

I think missing the mark on being the 1,2, and 3 above boils down to thinking that belonging to God means finding His blessing on one's life. We have taken the words "surrender to God" to mean believe in the crucifixion by faith and then live your life from the moment of surrender expecting God makes all things peachy.

We continue to live our own story instead of His.

Better we should learn how His Presence fulfills all our earthly desire. All of it. We learn to relinquish our earthly desires and become fascintated with the wonder of the Pearl. This is a spiritual practice we need to make a part of our lives, not just "study" in Sunday school or hear from the pulpit. Practically? It is learning to use the pronouns "I, my, and mine" a lot less, then taking the emotional energy involved and moving it into Jesus.

One need not become a monk/nun, withdrawn and vowed to poverty, to be consumed by God's Presence. It may be a paradox for us sometimes as we migrate through ownership of stuff (a culural reality), but He is able to teach us how to manage stuff without it owning our hearts.

Re: Being a Missional Christian

Joseph Cotten — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 20:08:44 -0000

You know, this goes all the way back to Abram/Abraham. God said that He would bless Abraham so that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through Abraham. We've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ so that the world, through us may be blessed with Christ's blessings!

Re: Being a Missional Christian

Ben Cotten — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 19:53:07 -0000

Yep, I agree (that's a hair that should be split). That was poor wording on my part. Our mission is to declare the message: "We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God." Christ did the reconciling and entrusted us with the "message of reconciliation".

I certainly don't want to imply that WE can reconcile anyone to God. Thanks for reading my writing more closely than I did... ;-)

...and we know you love us...

Re: Being a Missional Christian

Rodney M — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:13:27 -0000

BTW, Ben, I love you guys. Please don't take my previous comments as an attack on either of you. Think of it as two friends discussing philosophy and faith.

Re: Being a Missional Christian

Rodney M — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:10:21 -0000

Splitting hairs maybe, but here goes...

Jesus mission was to reconcile the world to God, which was completed on the cross. We can't continue that mission, because #1) it is finished and #2) it was a work only Jesus could do. So the question becomes, what does the Holy Spirit want us to do? Not that it would be different than what Jesus would want us to do. But we shouldn't confuse Jesus' mission with ours, because they are different.