(Rev. Rocky Good, a Just Jump Ministries, Inc. Board Member, serves as Pastor of
New Heights Church in Farmington, MO.)
Go! To GO has been a command for many unpretentious agents in the Kingdom of God. God turned to Jesus and say, “It is time to GO!” Paul said of the divine schedule, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still unpretentious, Christ died for the naïve, ingenuous, most ungodly candidates to partner with God on a mission trip with Just Jump.” RJG*
Sacrifice and suffering can go hand in hand. There is a price to pay when partnering with God. There is great reward with partnering with God. God always takes the initiative in this partnering endeavor. Since we have no idea what God is about to do (unless He tells us), we must watch for God’s invite. Teaming up with an agent of God from Sedalia was a leap of faith. Like Nathaniel, we wondered, “Can anything good come from Missouri’s Nazareth (Sedalia)?” RJG* Once God calls then we watched the sacrifice begin. We counted our pennies, but it required dollars. We looked for builders, but it required servants. We sought strong backs, but we got old bodies and one young mom, a former Marine. As the days were accomplished that God would give birth to a kitchen constructed in the desert of Baja California, Mexico, on a facility for displaced elderly men. Christ was at work building Kingdom people to serve Kingdom people for His glory. Three days of Vacation Bible School, two worship services, visiting an orphanage and working side-by-side with young adults from Ensenada were all in God’s plans.
This mission trip screamed with HOPE, God’s hope. Hope for pastors in Mexico, hope for churches we worshiped with, hope for cooks and elderly desert dwellers. Just Jump and
partners lived what God reveals in Romans 5, “Since we have been justified through faith, we have PEACE with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into the grace in which we now stand. We boast in the HOPE of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our suffering (sacrifice)*, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, HOPE. And HOPE does not put us to shame, because God’s LOVE has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
Somewhere, somehow amid God’s activity we experience JOY in the partnership of God’s making.
* RJG translation represents, Rocky Joe Good. Its purpose is to personalize meaning and
application for the people of New Heights as we ponder the mysteries of God’s revelation.
