There is much talk in our day about "knowing" the Lord. A great deal of it seems quite hollow. It seems to have become a form of religious jargon at times. We instinctively know something is wrong, but we're not quite sure why.

If I know and love Jesus, then my life must be profoundly centered in two realities. First, I have encountered Jesus in the gospel in a personal way. He is "my Lord and my God" (John 20:28). Second, because of this divine encounter with God, I now follow Jesus daily: "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me" (Luke 9:23 NASB).

Every authentic encounter with the living God—and thus every true experience of faith—is an encounter with the Holy. This is precisely where modern Christianity seems to go so wrong. We assert that God is love, but we fail to understand that His love is gracious, sacrificial, and self-giving. It results in forgiveness, to be sure; but it also results in the death of His only Son. And it is costly for Christians, since it calls us to follow Jesus in a life that is lived under the cross.

The love that comes from the holy God does accept the sinner as he is, but because this love is holy, it demands that the sinner change. In a true encounter with the Holy One, we are disturbed—or at least we will become disturbed in due time.

This means that if our encounter with God is real and holy, it is never a purely private affair. Nor is our encounter with God confined to the private life of our mind. As a Christ follower, my life is now kingdom life, and kingdom life means that I can never accept the status quo as normative. Yet most Christians today live their entire lives without ever challenging one iota of the status quo—not even in their own family, much less in their community.

The point here should be clear: Those who follow Jesus follow Him in His mission. As a Christ follower, I am united, by the Holy Spirit, with and to Christ's mission.

What This Mission Means

In Luke 4 we read that Jesus came to Nazareth, where He had been reared as a boy. He went to the local synagogue, and on the Sabbath day He stood up and read the Old Testament. His text was Isaiah 61:1-2. This text provides a kind of general injunction to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, etc.

If we share in the work of Jesus' kingdom, then our general pattern as Christ followers is to follow the commission of Isaiah as announced by Jesus. In short, wherever we see a need, we will personally encounter whoever is in that need. Then we will do whatever it takes to bring the good news of the kingdom, the freedom that sets people truly free, to that person and context.

If we dream of a new day where the kingdom of God triumphs in the lives of millions of followers, and if we imagine what it would look like if God's Spirit were poured out on our communities in grace and power, we should ask again and again, "What would it really look like if we followed Jesus into His mission to the world?"

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