God’s Forever Journey

Made For : an audio journey

God's single biggest goal is that all creation would be aligned to Him, that everyone on earth, all nearly 8 billion, would align our hearts with His. It's His mission of reconciliation to the world. So, as a follower of Christ, did we sign up for this task?

Full Transcript below, or at missiongap.org/podcasts

'Made for' CONTRIBUTORS:

• Andrew Scott – From Ireland, living in the USA. Serves as President of OM in the US, and author of “Scatter: Go Therefore and Take Your Job With You”
• Belén Peters – From Chile, living in the USA. Serves as Career Advisor with Elevalto, career advisors for Jesus followers looking to take their life and skills to another part of the world.
• Decio De Carvalho – From Brazil, living in Puerto Rico. Serves as Executive Director of COMIBAM, an alliance of national mission groups across twenty-five Ibero-American countries.
• Ewout van Oosten – From the Netherlands, living in the Netherlands. Serves as Global Director of TeenStreet, a youth discipleship movement in over 50 countries.
• Glenn Packiam – From Malaysia, living in the USA. Serves as Associate Senior Pastor of New Live Church, and author of “Blessed Broken Given: How Your Story Becomes Sacred in the Hands of Jesus”
• Jessica Shumba – From Zimbabwe, living in Zimbabwe. Serves as National Director of OM in Zimbabwe, mobilising Zimbabwean Jesus followers to share Gods love.
• Katherine Lee – From the USA, living in the USA. Serves as Content and Creative Director for the Fuller Leadership Platform at Fuller Theological Seminary.
• Lawrence Tong – From Singapore, living in Singapore. Serves as International Director of OM, a global community of Jesus followers, united to share God’s love with those who don’t know it.
• Vaibhav – From India, living in India. Serves among people unreached with the love of Christ, focusing on the Tribals, the rag pickers, farmers and migrant workers. (Last name omitted for security)

Bible readings: Mason Peters, Mariela Morbelli, Carla Moran, Matt Tooker, Anthea Godsmark, Philip Godsmark

Hosted by: Geoff Peters - Geoff is a huge fan of coffee and market research, but what really gets his heart pounding is inspiring people to share God’s love with the world. He is a deep thinker driven to understand the fears, concerns, beliefs and motivations of Christians better. Through the Mission Gap Project, Geoff hopes to encourage believers to step beyond the safety of their comfort zones and love others for Christ.

Transcript: Series Two, Episode One, God's Forever Journey.

Geoff:

God's single biggest goal is that all creation would be aligned to Him, that everyone on earth, all nearly 8 billion, would align our hearts with His. It's His mission of reconciliation to the world. Paul says in his Letter to the Corinthians that God has given followers of Christ, the "ministry of reconciliation." That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself. It is God's purpose to make all things new, that everything would reflect God's creation intent.

Geoff:

In this episode, we'll be going on a journey from Genesis to Revelation, exploring God's plan for creation's reconciliation to Himself and His heart for us, which has shaped His plan for the world. From the start, until today.

Reader 2:

Genesis 3, Verses 8-10. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God, as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And they hid from the Lord God, among the trees of the garden. The Lord called to the man, "Where are you?" He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid."

Geoff:

This is Ewout, he's based in the Netherlands. I asked him to talk to me about God's heart for reconciliation and how we see it all through the Bible, from the very beginning to the end.

Ewout:

One of the biggest quotes of God for me in scripture that's always been speaking to me is the first thing he says after Adam and Eve have gone their own way, He's like, "Where are you?" All through scripture, I hear God saying to His sons and daughters, where are you, because I want you to be with me because that is the best place, that's where you find life, and life in abundance. God is a God that is constantly trying to find ways to, He wants to be found. It was like a hide and seek thing, but He wants to come.

Ewout:

If my youngest son plays hide and seek, he actually is not really hiding, he wants to be found. That is the journey all through it, and then to discover that it's God doing that to me, like He did, but then that He wants to use me to be His voice, to say where are you? And that God has used me as a vessel to help other people discover that that their Heavenly Father is waiting for them, and he wants to receive them in His home, where they can find life, and life in abundance. That just blows my mind. It's almost so absurd that He wants to use me that I sometimes forget, and then He reminds me again, like, "Oh yeah, thank you Father, and I'm out there."

Reader 3:

Ezekiel 34, Verses 11 and 12. For this is what the sovereign Lord says. I myself will search for my sheep and look after them, as a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness.

Andrew:

Again, we have to go back to the original intent of the Creator, and that was to create humanity, to be in relationship with Him, and then together with Him, ensure that creation flourished.

Geoff:

This is Andrew. I asked him his thoughts on God's reconciling heart for humanity.

Andrew:

And of course, sin entered in, and started to distort and sought to destroy God's original intent. As we read scripture, we actually start to see the story of a God, a loving God, relentlessly pursuing His people so that they would follow his ways. If we fast forward into the New Testament, we see Jesus coming, and Jesus came down to earth, not simply as I believed for years, Jeff, not simply to save me from my sins so that I would one day go to heaven, but to actually bring back into being the original intent of the Creator.

Andrew:

So that God's original intent back in Genesis 1, that people for Himself that would enjoy a flourishing world that was in harmony with God, that was in sync with God and his ways, that they would get to enjoy that. Jesus came, basically came announcing that kingdom was now here. He talked about, "I've come to announce the Kingdom, the good news of the Kingdom, that God is King." That God is the one, the ruler over all of the earth, and he was here starting to put things right, because we know that when God is King things work differently, things work well, things work as they surely were intended.

Reader 4:

Matthew 18, Verses 12 to 14. What do you think if a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the 99 on the hills and go out to search for the one that is lost? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices more over that one sheep than ever the 99 that do not go astray. In the same way, your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.

Geoff:

Throughout scripture, we can see God's vision playing out, drawing humanity towards Himself. It's His one major purpose in the world. It's what He's attempting to do. This is Belén Peters. She's originally from Chile where she was born and raised, and she also happens to be my beautiful wife. I asked her to describe how she sees God's purpose in creation and what implication this has on how she lives her life.

Belén:

Well, for me, I think that God is in the business of reconciliation. He wants everyone to get to know Him. He wants us to find Him, to have a relationship with Him. He pursues us all the time, and so I think that that's what He intends. He wants us to have a relationship with Him so we can be healed, restored, and we can bring more people to have this same kind of relationship with Him. When I say everybody, it means everybody. It means every single person on earth needs to get to know God and understand that He loves them, and He has a purpose and a plan for their lives.

Belén:

It really breaks my heart to know that 40% of the population, or roughly, haven't heard, or if they have heard, they don't understand. If you come from a Muslim background or a Hindu background, it's hard to understand. Even for me, I was saying that I grew up in a church, since I was eight years old, but I never understood what it meant for my life that God had a plan and a purpose, and He wanted to have this deep relationship with me. Now I understand it, and I want to share it. My life is all about that, to share, to help mobilize people to go and share this message because there is nothing more important in life than this.

Geoff:

You've been listening to the Made For podcast series, part of the Mission Gap Project from Operation Mobilization, with me, Geoff. To find out more, go to missiongap.org, and if you would, please rate this podcast in your app store and leave a comment so others can more easily find this series. In the next episode...