God Works With Us

At the end of Mark's gospel the Lord Jesus is taken up into heaven after his resurrection and spending time with the disciples.  The disciples went  out and preached everywhere and something marvelous happened: "the Lord worked WITH them and confirmed his works by signs that accompanied it." (Mark 16:20)  I love what follows obedience to the mission Jesus had given them:

1. The Lord worked with them.  I love this!  There is a sense of partnership in Jesus working with us.  It is not us doing all the grunt work and Jesus coming in later to do His thing.  It is not us inviting Jesus to come and do everything.  It is a partnership.  Jesus works WITH us as we work the mission.  In this instance  Jesus is not working with us to grow spiritually and to make it through difficult times.  Jesus can and will do that as well.  But it is in our obedience to the mission we have been given that we see Jesus specifically working WITH the disciples (and us).  Of course, we do need to go out on the mission to experience this.
2. The Word of Jesus is confirmed by signs from Jesus.  I love this!  This isn't just seeing the kindness of the disciples and saying, "These are nice people.  Their message must be good."  or even noticing that their actions were consistent with what they preached.  These are specific supernatural signs provided by Jesus.  We often forget that the miraculous is possible as we obey the mission.  Unfortunately, if the miraculous did happen we end up being shocked and surprised instead of seeing that as normal.  As Jesus works with us in our mission we need to ask for, and expect, the miraculous.
3. We are not the ones in charge!  I love this!  Far too often we make the mission plans and set the parameters for our outreach.  If we partner WITH God we don't dictate TO God how we are to go about HIS mission.  God doesn't work for us but with us!  It is time to open up to do whatever God has in store for us and then to go on His mission WITH Jesus.