A Blessing to All

Today's Scripture: Isaiah 49:6
"I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth."
Read it online at the Bible Gateway: (NIV) (NASB) (KJV) (The Message)

To explore what the apostle Paul called "the unsearchable riches of Christ" (Ephesians 3:8) —the Gospel —we rightly examine our need of the Gospel, the work of Christ in meeting that need, and the application of his work to our individual lives in justification, adoption, glorification, and sanctification. But if we stopped at that point, it could seem as if the Gospel promotes only an attitude of pure self-interest on our part: What will the Gospel do for me? Or at most, the Gospel would be about God and me.

But the Gospel is not about God and me. The Gospel is about God and the world: "In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself" (2 Corinthians 5:19).

We're not to be a terminus point for the Gospel, but rather a way station in its progress to the ends of the earth. God intends that everyone who has embraced the Gospel become a part of the great enterprise of spreading the Gospel. What our particular part may be will vary from person to person, but all of us should be involved.

The same Scriptures that in centuries past motivated the pioneers in world missions should motivate us today. A good starting point is Genesis 12:3, where God promises Abraham that "all peoples on earth will be blessed through you" (NIV). God repeats this promise in Genesis 22:18, where he more specifically says, "through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed" (NIV). In Galatians 3:16 the apostle Paul identified this "offspring" as Christ. God's promise to Abraham, then, is that all nations will be blessed through Christ—that is, through his atoning work for us.