{"id":1899,"date":"2014-09-16T10:57:42","date_gmt":"2014-09-16T14:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/?p=1899"},"modified":"2014-09-16T11:11:13","modified_gmt":"2014-09-16T15:11:13","slug":"strategic-living","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/?p=1899","title":{"rendered":"Strategic Living"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Once you\u2019re past trying to get God to bless your personal mission and realize the Christian life is about abandoning your long-loved private mission and surrendering the rest of your life to God\u2019s mission (the Bible calls this repentance; it is the beginning point of one\u2019s journey as a disciple of Jesus Christ), then you are ready to consider living life strategically.<\/p>\n<p>After Jesus rose from the dead and as He was ready to ascend back to heaven He outlined for His followers the strategy in which He would lead them (and us!) for the rest of time. He laid out for them (and us!) the very strategy that would usher Him back to earth in His Second Coming. This was not something just for the first century, but for all the centuries to come. This was not something just for super-Christians, but for all us ordinary Christ-followers in all ages and in all places. If we are Christ\u2019s, we\u2019re all on one mission\u2014God\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>Here is how Jesus put it: <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>\u201cBut you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.\u201d<\/em><\/span> (Acts 1:8)<\/p>\n<p>The unfolding of the rest of history is laid out in this simple sentence. This is the God-designed, divinely-ordained strategy for all the rest of time\u2014for His entire Church, for each church, and for every Christian.<\/p>\n<p>As you can see the strategy has four key parts: the advance of the gospel to \u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">1) \u201c<span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Jerusalem<\/span>\u201d<br \/>\n2) \u201c<span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">all Judea<\/span>\u201d<br \/>\n3) \u201c<span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">and Samaria<\/span>\u201d<br \/>\n4) \u201c<span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">to the end of the earth.<\/span>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Did you realize that this also is the basic outline of the Book of Acts? The Holy Spirit came upon the followers of Jesus in chapter 2 and then immediately God began, through them, to work the strategy. In the Book of Acts we see the disciples of Jesus advancing the gospel through their witness \u2026<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>in the city of <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Jerusalem<\/span> (Acts 1-8:3)<\/li>\n<li>in the provinces of <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Judea<\/span> and <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Samaria<\/span> (Acts 8:4-12:25), and<\/li>\n<li>to <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">the ends of the earth<\/span> (Acts 13:1-28:31).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>God gave us the Book of Acts to show us something of how the strategy was to be employed and the power and blessing we can expect when we surrender ourselves to God and work His strategy.<\/p>\n<p>But I invite you to look at Acts 1:8 again, not just as an outline of Acts and the church\u2019s activity in the first century, but as a strategic call to live your life on mission with God. Read Acts 1:8 again, this time as the plan for every century and all the followers of Christ, including you and me. This is to be a collective mission (the Church), a corporate mission (each church), and a personal (each Christian) mission.<\/p>\n<p>See Jesus here placing a divinely-designed mission upon the Church in each generation, every church in every age, and upon every Christ-follower throughout all the ages. In this way we will see that we are each one responsible to reach those who are \u2026<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>within <em>our<\/em> <span style=\"color: #000000;\">Jerusalem<\/span>,<\/li>\n<li>within <em>our<\/em> <span style=\"color: #000000;\">Judea<\/span>,<\/li>\n<li>within <em>our<\/em> <span style=\"color: #000000;\">Samaria<\/span>, and<\/li>\n<li>within <em>our<\/em> generation anywhere on the earth.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But what does that mean?<\/p>\n<p>You will notice that living strategically in line with God\u2019s mission involves living along two axes (that is the plural for axis, not a reference to two or more long-handled hatchets!).<\/p>\n<p>One axis is geographical. The other is cultural.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Acts-1.8.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1900\" src=\"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Acts-1.8-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Acts 1.8\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Acts-1.8-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Acts-1.8.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Jerusalem<\/strong> <\/span>=<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Axis #1<\/strong>: Geographically <em>near<\/em> to me (think \u201cwhere I live\u201d).<br \/>\n<strong>Axis #2<\/strong>: Culturally <em>like<\/em> me (think \u201cfolks similar to me\u201d in terms of income, neighborhoods, tastes, schools, ethnicity, language, etc.)<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Judea<\/span> <\/strong>=<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Axis #1<\/strong>: Geographically <em>in proximity to<\/em> me (think \u201cthe other side of town,\u201d \u201cthe next town over,\u201d \u201cin another<br \/>\ndepartment at work,\u201d \u201cin another class at school,\u201d etc.)<br \/>\n<strong>Axis #2<\/strong>: Culturally <em>near<\/em> to me (again think, \u201cfolks like me\u201d)<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Samaria<\/strong> <\/span>=<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Axis #1<\/strong>: Geographically <em>in proximity to<\/em> me (again think \u201cin my town\u201d or \u201cin my immediate region\u201d)<br \/>\n<strong>Axis #2<\/strong>: Culturally <em>unlike<\/em> me (I must cross a border of language, foods, ethnicity, holidays, religion, culture, etc. to reach them)<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>End of the Earth<\/strong><\/span> =<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Axis #1<\/strong>: Geographically <em>far<\/em> from me (I must cross a boarder or an ocean to reach them physically)<br \/>\n<strong>Axis #2<\/strong>: Culturally <em>unlike<\/em> (in varying degrees) from me (I will probably have to cross a border of ethnicity, language, foods, holidays, religion, culture, etc. to reach them)<\/p>\n<p>In additional posts I want to unpack what living strategically with Jesus means for each of us where we live. Until then, can you begin to identify people\/groups\/areas\/towns\/etc. in your life that fit each of these strategic target groups?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Once you\u2019re past trying to get God to bless your personal mission and realize the Christian life is about abandoning your long-loved private mission and surrendering the rest of your life to God\u2019s mission (the Bible calls this repentance; it is the beginning point of one\u2019s journey as a disciple of Jesus Christ), then you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[30,25,68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-acts","category-evangelism","category-missions","post-preview"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgYGxX-uD","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1899"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1905,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899\/revisions\/1905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkitchen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}