Missions isn’t life’s number one goal. That might sound strange coming from me after four decades in mission work. But the great adventure and most urgent need is knowing Christ’s Glory. He is the point of missions, and the heart and will to declare him is shaped by our admiration of his Glory. This is where praying about Glory gets bigger.

Mission passion is coded into the spiritual DNA of Christ’s Body. Mission roles and ventures vary, but missional living is a grace to the whole church. And its strength is connected to our seeing of Christ’s Glory. It’s the intentional overflow from intimacy with the glorious Jesus.

There is an urgency to being witnesses of Christ – of who he is, what he is like and what he has done to display that. But, while bigger mission structures, better techniques and more personnel can add to mission impact, they can’t substitutes for the top line need: passion for the Glory of Christ.

Praying about Glory gets bigger

Some believe that pursuing intimacy with Jesus distracts from mission; that it makes us insular and self-absorbed. That’s a sad misunderstanding. We’re born and redeemed for the great adventure: enjoying Christ’s Glory from close-up…..forever. Seeing him feeds an admiration that makes us want to see more……and tell others about the view.

To know Christ’s Glory and make him known. The order is important. When we switch it, the most important part usually gets lost in the busyness of well-meaning projects and tasks. Mission passion ebbs and with it the witness that overflows from fresh encounters with Christ.

Growing as know-ers of Christ’s Glory isn’t an academic thing. It’s an intimacy upgrade that comes through talking with him about his Glory. And the prayer conversation gets bigger. From talk of knowing his Glory, the conversation takes on his passion for his Glory to be known.

In a recent blog post, I suggested some steps to shaping our Conversation about Glory. It involved choosing an aspect of the Lord’s Glory, then using it as the focus of a conversation piece. Two types of prayer were included: celebration and thanks. Now, the praying about Glory gets bigger as we add: HUNGER to know Christ’s Glory more.

• Pick up something of Paul’s passion from his words in Phil 3:10, I want to know Christ, or as the TPT puts it, I continually long to know the wonders of Jesus more fully.
• Talk to the Lord of your longing to know him more (to see, hear, love, and be more like him).
• Focus on one aspect of his Glory (of who he is, what he is like) and let your desire to know that beauty in him in a deeper way become your conversation piece over the next few days.
• As the conversation grows around hunger to know his Glory, let it move into prayer about a longing for him to be known.
• Be alert – as your heart is touched by that ‘seeing’ of his Glory – for the opportunities the Spirit will give for it to overflow in witness.