What does it mean to be an ambassador of Christ?
This week on the podcast, I talk to Paul Granger about what it really means to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and be an ambassador of Christ in you daily life.
Paul has been active in various ministries over the years (see his bio below).
Read the full transcipt of this episode
Before we really got into our conversation, I asked Paul what God is doing in his life right now. Because of some technical problems and his microwave catching on fire the morning before we spoke, he realized that even if things don’t go the way you want or expect, God still gives you the grace to go forward and learn lessons you didn’t know you needed to learn.
Paul has learned from these experiences that the most important thing to remember is to seek God first and listen for His guidance.
Jesus’s promise to send a Helper, the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, always gives him comfort to know that promise has been fulfilled. The peace in this is that we don’t have to face these challenges alone.
Whatever a situation is, you can go forward and trust God.
Walking in the footsteps of Jesus
What does it mean to follow in the footsteps of Jesus?
It’s not arguing about doctrine. Paul makes the point that God sent Jesus as a human being. This is amazing because we can relate to him and see the way he lived and begin to understand God from the way Jesus lived his life.
Part of the journey of walking in footsteps of Jesus is realizing what we need to unlearn and what we need to relearn in order to follow him.
Even though Jesus is not physically present with us, we can still feel close to him, just like you can feel close to someone who is miles away.
Walking with Jesus is still relevant today. If we are not consciously walking with Christ, we often default to an academic approach that just wants more information, instead of transformation and relationship.
Walking with Jesus today
Walking with Jesus is the best way for us to learn what we actually believe, what we actually desire, and to unlearn the things leading us in the wrong direction, and to learn and accept what Jesus is teaching us.
This is a lifelong journey and we see our growth.
If Jesus was still here physically, we might depend on him to solve all our problems instead of turning to God. Jesus wants us to have the same trusting relationship with God that he did.
Just because Jesus was physically present with the Pharisees, didn’t mean they understood who he was. Jesus was physically present in the boat with his disciples during the storm. But they were still afraid. Physical proximity is not a guarantee that we understand and follow Jesus.
Participating with Jesus
Jesus wants us to take his yoke. He’s inviting us to partner with him in his work. We can’t just be bystanders watching Jesus do everything.
In feeding the 5,000 Jesus invites his disciples to participate. He told them to feed the people. But they were still thinking he would do everything.
God invites us to participate in life with Him. When Moses led the Children of Israel out of Egypt, God invited them to participate in the process. They had to cross the Red Sea. They had to collect the manna. They had to walk through the wilderness.
When people were dying from serpent bites, God told Moses to erect a bronze serpent. When people got bitten by a snake, God said if they would look at the serpent on the pole, they would be healed.
Paul points out that God could have removed the snakes, or made them harmless, but He was inviting the people to make a choice, to participate in the healing process. They had to do something. God put a healing process in place, but the people had to participate in the process, which included turning back to God.
Your relationship with God
The answer to every problem is to be in relationship with God, to be consciously in His presence.
God created us for relationship. That is where the fullness of your identity, value, purpose, potential lies. When we stray from God, we stray from ourselves.
As we walk in the footsteps of Jesus, we are participating in what God wants for us.
Paul points out that participation with God is not just some grand thing like starting a ministry, more importantly it’s in the little everyday details of life, like eating and washing dishes.
Don’t just make room for God in your life
It’s not that we’re trying to make room for God in our lives. The real issue is that God is our Life. This is the starting point. Everything we do is an opportunity to connect with God, to love and serve God.
Paul asks, and wants us to ask, this question: How can I shift my understanding from “God is a part of my life that I have to fit in,” to “God is my life, and everything flows from that”?
This is a big mindset shift. All the little details of daily living can be a way to participate with and glorify God, to reflect His love, to be unselfish, to be humble.
It’s about letting God’s love permeate all the details of our lives.
Participating with Jesus but not always understanding why
Jesus said sometimes we don’t understand why we’re being asked to participate but that we’ll understand later. This is what he told Peter when he didn’t understand why Jesus was washing his feet.
When God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit asks us to participate in some way, we may not understand why, but we can do it anyway and God will reveal things to us as we grow spiritually.
We’re often asked to participate in something that feels foolish at the time, but our job is not to figure it out, but to step toward God.
When we do this we step out of the limitations of our human mindset into heaven on earth, because we die to self. In dying to self, we discover our life in Christ. The more we do this we experience more of heaven on earth.
Participating with God
Paul shared some examples of how God was inviting him to participate in ways that were different.
When they were expecting their first child, they were told at week nine there was no heartbeat. Paul felt impelled to pray for the baby to live, but that did not happen. As hard as it was, he felt God was still inviting him to participate in stepping closer to Him. He did and it’s made all the difference.
He felt this was an example of him dying to self, where he gave up his own inclinations, desires, and opinions about what life should be, and step closer to God. It’s about dying to your desire and inclination to be in control and choose to live in accepting God’s invitation to live the way God wants you to.
God is journeying with us
God is in relationship with us. So many things we want are like the grass that dies and withers away.
Paul talks about a time he felt God invited his wife and him to pursue a house that was way more money than they could afford. They loved the house and prayed about it, but at some point they realized it probably wasn’t going to work out.
They had shifted from pursuing God to pursuing the house. Paul felt God saying to him: Why are you sad? What were you pursuing here, the house or Me? Because if it was Me, it doesn’t matter whether you get the house or not.
They did end up getting the house, but that wasn’t the point. It was about learning to trust God and pursue His will.
Hearing God’s voice
I asked Paul, “What if someone feels they can’t hear God’s voice inviting them to participate in life?”
He says the important thing to remember is that even if you don’t feel you’re qualified like Moses and Gideon felt, God can still use you.
For the person who feels the least equipped to serve God, you may be the best equipped because you know you can’t do it without God’s help.
Be willing to consider the possibility that God can use you, even if you feel you have nothing to bring to the table to serve God. This opens the door to the infinite possibilities of God.
You don’t have to be a super-Christian for God to work through you.
True evangelism in the footsteps of Jesus
We talked about the original meaning of the word “evangelism.”
How can we share our faith? How can we let our light shine? It’s not just being a street preacher. It’s the way you live your life every day.
It’s not that you can’t share your faith if you don’t feel impelled to be a street evangelist. Paul has had many conversations with people about his faith because of the fact that God has called him to love his neighbor as himself.
A mentor encouraged him to sit on his front porch and talking to his neighbors. It starts with a simple wave, a greeting, learning their name, and eventually having a conversation and sharing his faith.
Your lack of capacity is not a deterrent to God working in you. You don’t have to be a perfect human being for God to use you.
Being an ambassador of Christ
Sometimes when God has called you to something, the calling is not always the specific thing you’re doing. The call is actually to love God and your neighbor as yourself, to be an ambassador of Christ.
Ask yourself: What is God calling me to do today as an ambassador for Christ?
It’s important to make the separation between your calling to let your light shine and the specific task or occupation your calling is attached to at the moment.
What does it really mean to be an ambassador of Christ? To represent the one who sent you. Jesus said, I only do what I see the Father doing. I only say what I hear the Father saying.
An ambassador knows who sent them and is representing them well.
You can be an ambassador or Christ
You are an ambassador of Christ whether you’re preaching at church or when you’re at home with your kids, or walking down the street. It’s in the details of everyday life.
You can take joy that the God of the universe chose you, despite your limitations, failings and past, to be a part of His beautiful appeal and plan to draw all creation back to Himself.
Paul’s final words of wisdom:
You may not feel you can take a giant leap of faith. Just take a small toe-nudge forward, one inch at a time, one day at a time. Focus on the fact that you have been given the privilege and gift and blessing to step toward God today.
3 Final Questions
- If you could talk to any Bible character other than Jesus, who would it be and what would you ask them?
Paul, because I would like to ask him about the differences between when he was Saul and then Paul. I’d also like to talk to him about how he dealt with the mockery he faced.
- Is there any Bible character you especially identify with?
It depends on what he’s going through. Sometimes I wrestle with doubt like Thomas. Some I resonate with Gideon and his lack of confidence. Other times I feel the presence of the Spirit and the words flow out of me like happened to Peter when he preached on the day of Pentecost.
- This podcast is about getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus. How would you describe Jesus’s original message of how he wanted us to live our lives?
It really boils down to loving God and love others as ourselves. Also proverbs 3:5, 6. Jesus invites us to participate in trusting God with our lives.
Paul Granger lives in Richmond, VA with his wife Becca and three kids. Paul has been serving in inner-city ministries since 2005, with a focus on shepherding others as they seek to “love God and love others”. He currently serves with Youth With A Mission in Virginia as Interim Campus Director of YWAM City Lights, is President of New Visions Civic League, facilitates a Community Bible Study, and hosts the Where Did You See God podcast. He sees himself as an ambassador of Christ and helps others to see themselves in that light as well.
Podcast: Where did you see God?
Website: WhereDidYouSeeGod.com
Author’s page on Amazon*
* Affiliate links
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James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and podcaster. He conducts Bible workshops online and in person. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by embracing the mindset of Christ in daily life. Contact him here.
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Bible References
John 14:26 NASB20
26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and remind you of all that I said to you.
Philippians 2:5-7 NIV
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature[fn] of a servant, being made in human likeness.
1 Corinthians 1:21 KJV
21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
John 16:17 NIV
17 But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate [the Holy Spirit] will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.
Matthew 11:29 NIV
29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
Number 21:4-9 NIV
4 They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way;
5 they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!”
6 Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died.
7 The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.”
8 The LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.”
9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.
John 14:12 NIV
12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.
John 5:19 NIV
19 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.
John 13:6, 7 NIV
6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”
7 Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”
1 Corinthians 13:11, 12 ESV
11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
1 Corinthians 15:31 AMP
31 I assure you, believers, by the pride which I have in you in [your union with] Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily [I face death and die to self].
1 Peter 1:24, 25 NIV
24 For, “All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall,
25 but the word of the Lord endures forever.” [Isaiah 40:6-8 Septuagint] And this is the word that was preached to you.
Exodus 4:10 NIV
10 Moses said to the LORD, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”
Judges 6:15 NIV
15 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”
Psalm 149:15 NIV
15 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
Ephesians 4:11, 12 KJV
11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
2 Corinthians 5:18-20 NIV
18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:
19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.
John 12:49, 50 NIV
49 For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken.
50 I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.
1 Corinthians 3:6 NIV
6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.
Matthew 5:16 NIV
16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
Proverbs 3:5, 6 NIV
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
