God’s Unchanging Mission
by Curtis Going
In 1629 while grieving the death of his wife, the Indian ruler Shah Jahan, ordered an impressive tomb to be built as a monument to her memory. A wooden casket containing her body was placed in the middle of a piece of land that Shah Jahan had selected for the building site, and construction began around the casket. Several years passed as the magnificent structure began to take shape, and after some time the Shah’s excitement about the new building overshadowed the grief that had initially motivated the project.
The story is told that one day while he was inspecting the progress that had been made, the Shah stumbled over a wooden box, and not realizing what it was, ordered the workers to get rid of it. Several months later he discovered that it was his wife’s casket that had been destroyed. Right in the middle of building the Taj Mahal, he had forgotten his mission.*
The landscape of church history is littered with many examples of churches and ministry organizations that have neglected or abandoned their God-given mission. Every church age faces new challenges, and every generation must be on its guard against compromise with the spirit of the present age. It takes determination for the Church to be faithful to its mission in the face of adversity.
While we are engaged in the battle for truth and righteousness, we find courage and confidence in the faithful, unchanging character of our God. Numbers 23:19 reminds us that “God is not a man, that he should lie; Neither the son of man, that he should repent: Hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?” In Malachi 3:6, the Lord of hosts declares, “For I am the Lord, I change not…” And in II Timothy 2:13 Paul writes, “If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.”
God is persistently working out His purposes. God established His church to serve as the pillar and ground of the truth (I Timothy 3:15). Jesus declared, “I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18). He commissioned His disciples to “Go..and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you…” (Matthew 28:19-20a)
We have a God-given mandate to uphold and defend Biblical truth. We have a God-given mission to advance the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to make disciples, and to build up Christ’s church. Opposition is guaranteed, but God is steadily and persistently working out His purposes, and He will not fail! May we faithfully partner with Him in declaring the whole counsel of God, boldly and lovingly maintaining our witness to the life-transforming power of the Gospel, and daring great things for His kingdom’s sake!
God is insistently maintaining His precepts. Churches change, nations change, and cultures change, but the precepts of God’s inspired, infallible, inerrant Word never change! A holy God requires a holy people. God insistently calls us to come out of the cesspool of a culture that is run amuck and to live carefully, obediently, and biblically as a witness to captive souls who have been blinded by the god of this world.
God is consistently keeping His promises. God has called us to join Him in His purposes, commanded us to maintain His precepts, and He has promised to be with us and help us in fulfilling the mission.
When Jesus commissioned His disciples to carry His gospel to the far-flung corners of the earth, He promised, “and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” (Matthew 28:20a) Just before He ascended into heaven, He promised them that the Holy Spirit would endue them with spiritual power that would enable them to carry out the work He had given them to do. That same Holy Spirit is present and active in our world today, and we go forward in times of uncertainty, knowing that there is a Divine Helper Who goes before us and prepares the way and Who goes with us to strengthen and embolden our witness.
He has called us to live holy lives, and He has offered every provision necessary to make it possible for us to live worthy of that calling. God has freely “given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness” according to His divine power. (II Peter 1:3). The Apostle Peter reminds us that if we are faithful, we have been promised “an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (I Peter 1:4-5)
Fortified with the knowledge that an unchanging, always faithful God goes before us and with us, let us be faithful to our mission of spreading Scriptural holiness and living out that holiness in obedience to His commands.
* Dr. James Dobson, Coming Home, Timeless Wisdom for Families, (Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton; 1998), p. 122