KICKSTART DEVOTIONAL
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On every Mission Discovery mission trip, we begin the morning together in God’s word. One speaker is chosen to give the word of the day so that everyone else can meditate on the Scripture. Our hope is that volunteers engage in group discussions throughout the day and in their small groups.
Since the way ministry is being done has shifted, our goal is to serve by creating resources that will help others focus on God throughout the day, and influence family and small group discussion.
Join us every weekday as we explore God’s word together. We will have speakers from all over the US and the world. Here is today’s Kickstart Devotional.
Video: Aaron Allison // Let a Resurrection Happen
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Let a Resurrection Happen, a lesson from doubting Thomas
Mission Discovery Mission Trips with Aaron Allison
Aaron Allison is the lead pastor at CIL Church in Hendersonville, TN. He has been a great partner and friend to Mission Discovery for many years. He believes in our mission and has seen just how powerful our short-term mission trips can be.
Well hello Mission Discovery. I’m so happy to get to speak into your life for just a few minutes. Unusual times, unusual circumstances but we have a God we can count on. And I hope you can just discover more about him through our talk today.
I love Mission Discovery. At our church, CIL Church in Hendersonville, Tennessee we have had lots of people go on Mission Discovery trips and we hope lots of people go on trips in the future.
We have a really special couple part of our church, Jimmy and Kyla Rivera. They are members of our church and they don’t just show up on Sundays. These guys are invested. They go to small groups. They pray, they serve.
They take the culture that is in Mission Discovery and they live it out through our local congregation. So it’s just a real honor to be associated with this ministry. We give a monthly check to Mission Discovery because we believe in it. And one of the reasons I believe in Mission Discovery is the culture that you guys have or we have. God does so much on the trips that take place and what happens on these trips is deep conversations.
These conversations really make a difference in people’s lives. And I know this is that during these conversations often people will talk about doubts that they would never bring up in a church atmosphere or on a Sunday morning or even at a Wednesday night youth group. Why is that
I think that the relaxed setting gives people the freedom and the trust to share their doubts. So I want to talk to you in just a few minutes about doubts that people will have when they’re associated with us, when they go on Mission Discovery trips.
But it’s not just for those people, might be for some of you today also because I know some of you may be struggling with doubts. We are living with a lot of death around us and when we see the death count that’s rising with this COVID-19 outbreak but it’s not just the death of a people’s human lives. It’s the death of jobs, the death of relationships, the death of plans.
I know my son is a high school senior and so life is looking a lot different for us than we thought April and May would look like. There was a senior trip, planned a big party. Right now we don’t even have a graduation ceremony. I know this is really small compared to what our health providers are going through and I wouldn’t try to equate something like that at all. I just wanted to acknowledge his story because I know you have a story too.
I mean you have a story where something that was special to you has kind of died during the season and that’s one of the reasons why Easter and the resurrection of Jesus is so important. So we’re in a time in the church calendar if you follow the traditional church calendar like our church does, we’re in Easter season.
I mean for most of my life I thought Easter was just one Sunday one Sunday dress up nice go to church have Easter ham afterwards and then it’s over. I discovered a few years back that Easter Sunday is actually the beginning of the Easter season. That goes until Pentecost Sunday.
Now the reason this is important is because this is a time whereas the global church we’re focusing on a certain story. The resurrection of Jesus and that’s the story everything hinges on so we celebrate that all the time. But I just want to bring this home to you right now because I know by the time you watch this video Easter Sunday is over but I’m telling you that you’re still in Easter. And this is an Easter like none other because we’re surrounded by the death that I mentioned. But the resurrection tells us that death will not win.
Death won’t get the last story. Death won’t get the last laugh. Even though it feels like death is all around us, death points us to resurrection. Jesus resurrected the first time and we will resurrect with him. Now some of us might be like Thomas. Thomas doubted the resurrection of Jesus. I think that at a Mission Discovery trip or in a Mission Discovery culture we have a chance to meet a lot of people like Thomas or we might be that Thomas ourselves.
I know I’ve been in the place of Thomas before.
I want to look with me at John Chapter 20.
The disciples were in a room locked in together and Jesus suddenly appeared. Thomas missed that. I mean he missed the appearance of Jesus and so here we find in the scripture that a week later.
This is John Chapter 20 starting with verse 26.
“A week later his disciples were indoors again and Thomas was with them.
And even though the doors were locked. Jesus came and stood among them and said Peace be with you then. Then he said that Thomas put your fingers here and look at my hands reach out your hands and put it in my side.”
Don’t be faithless but believe in Thomas responded to him my lord and my God. That’s one of the greatest phrases in Scripture.
And here it is that a lot of people like Thomas think that that doubt means they’re un-spiritual or they’ve missed Jesus or they’ve missed out. But doubt doesn’t push you away from Jesus. Actually doubt opens the door to Jesus because Jesus appeared to the disciples once but he came back a second time specifically to speak to Thomas.
And I want to remind you that Jesus is the one who keeps coming after you over and over and over again. The people in your life that doubt Jesus, he’s going to come after them. And if you’re doubting Jesus, he’s not pushing you away. Your doubts aren’t pushing you away, your doubt is opening yourself up to him. And so, I say that in these days of what appears to be death let a resurrection happen.
And if some of you have what you feel like is a death of your faith or you have a friend who has a death in their faith, Jesus is going to show up in an unexpected place at an unexpected time. Even if the doors locked. Even if it feels like that person is hiding from God, Jesus is going to show up in the place where they’re at. So resurrection is here and I know this is the culture of Mission Discovery conversations where doubts are trusted and shared and where Jesus shows up.
Let me pray for you. God I pray for my friends watching this that they would take every question that comes up to you and more they would realize that their doubts are leading them to Jesus. And we thank you for doing this in your name, we pray. Amen. God bless you. Thanks for watching. And let’s keep looking for Jesus.
