@FirstChurchofJerusalem
Today's Early Church Wisdom
“I shall not hesitate also to put into ordered form for you, along with the interpretations, everything I learned carefully in the past from the elders and noted down carefully, for the truth of which I vouch. For unlike most people, I took no pleasure in those who told many different stories, but only in those who taught the truth. Nor did I take pleasure in those who reported their memory of someone else’s commandments, but only in those who reported their memory of the commandments given by the Lord to the faith and proceeding from the Truth itself. And if by chance anyone who had been in attendance on the elders arrived, I made enquiries about the words of the elders—what Andrew or Peter had said, or Philip or Thomas or James or John or Matthew or any other of the Lord’s disciples, and whatever Aristion and John the Elder, the Lord’s disciples, were saying. For I did not think that information from the books would profit me as much as information from a living and surviving voice.
~ Papias of Hierapolis (c. 60–130 AD) From the Preface to his lost ‘Expositions of the Sayings of the Lord’
This week's Psalm is Psalm 31 'My Rock, My Shield, My Song'

Commissioned and Empowered

You have a mission

One of the most profound ways in which we benefit from our union with Christ in God is the fact that it gives us a mission. Jesus said, “I came from God, neither came I of Myself” (Jn.8:42; 16:28). Jesus was sent. God ‘gave’ His only begotten Son (John 3:16). He came voluntarily, but He was sent. It’s the same for us. Just as the Father sent Jesus, so Jesus sends us. It’s what we call ‘the great commission.’ There’s a mission we all share, and there’s also the specific calling of the individual. You have a mission to complete on earth. What is your current understanding of that mission? Your being one with Him also means that you will be empowered for that mission. Jesus said, “The Son can do nothing of Himself” (Jn.5:17,19;8:18). “I can of Myself do nothing” (Jn.5:30). “I do nothing of Myself” (Jn.8:28). Jesus was the Son of God, but He did what He did as a man walking in the power of the Holy Spirit. Following His ascension, He asked His Father to send the Holy Spirit, which He did on the day of Pentecost following the ascension. From that moment, Christ’s followers were empowered to live as He lived and to do even greater things than He did (John 14:12). You have a mission.