GIFTS of MISSIONAL LIVING: A 5-Day Journey Exploring the Gifts of the Holy Spirit for Missional LifeSýnishorn

DIVINE PERSPECTIVE FOR MISSION

The Holy Spirit calls Jesus’ disciples into mission and equips them for missional living through the gifts of his power, his presence, and his provision. We want to explore one more gift this week: the Holy Spirit’s perspective.

We live in a very noisy world, with loud and strident voices shouting opinions cloaked as “truth” from our screens and through our earbuds. Our postmodern cultural milieu relativizes truth, offering it up as a personalized and privately defined commodity. Navigating through the cacophony of voices and the multitude of “truths” can feel like walking through a minefield while wearing a blindfold.

However, Jesus promises his missional people that the Holy Spirit will be our guide, providing the divine perspective that will keep us on track as we seek to be faithfully obedient to his call. In John 15:26, Jesus specifically calls the Holy Spirit “the Spirit of truth" whose role is to testify on Jesus’ behalf. “Testify” means to give evidence or proof of the existence or truth of something, to be a witness to something. In John 14:26, Jesus makes clear that the object of the Spirit’s testimony is Jesus himself: “[He] will teach you everything and remind you all that I have commanded you.” The Holy Spirit speaks to Jesus’ disciples, just as he did to the church in Antioch (Acts 13), making God’s will and ways known to God’s missional people. As we saw in Acts 13, hearing that divine perspective often happens in the context of worship, as God’s people gather expectantly to praise him and to hear from him. That kind of attentive listening to the Holy Spirit’s perspective and guidance will probably require that we silence some of the other voices that seek to force their perspectives on us so that we have time and space to listen to the Spirit of truth.

Missional living begins in the heart of God; the Holy Spirit places on us the call to join God’s mission. The mission is too big for us in our own strength, so having called us, the Spirit gives gifts to equip us — his power, presence, provision, and perspective.

How are you leaning on the Holy Spirit's power, presence, and provision to fuel your missional living? How are you aligning your life with the Spirit’s perspective? OMS can help you explore these questions! Check out www.onemissionsociety.org .