Apostolic sending, a sent one beginnings

The last two "labels" on this post are where I gleaned this entire post from.  Nothing original, but just looking to the body to fill up where I am lacking.

The “I Am” sayings focus specifically on Jesus’ relationship to this world as our Savior. 

He is the Bread of Life who satisfies our nagging hunger for contentment (John 6:22-59). He is the Light of the World who frees us from walking in darkness (John 8:12-20). He is the Good Shepherd who keeps us from getting lost (John 10:11-31), and He is the Door through which God’s sheep enter into the safety of His refuge (John 10:1-10). He is the Resurrection and the Life so that, even though we die, yet shall we live (John 11:25). He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life so that we might, through Him, have access to God (John 14:6). He is the True Vine so that, when we are grafted into Him, His life flows continually to us as God Himself prunes and trains us to bear fruit (John 15:1). And He is eternal in His authority—at work in a Covenant of redemption that predates Abraham (John 8:31-59).

Arriving at a thorn-bush

A man spent years and years in the desert district tending sheep. Soberly aware of every phenomenon of the dire environment, he did not reflect much when one of those thorny bushes caught fire by spontaneous combustion. Normally those appearances were gone in seconds, this one allowed for an eyebrow to be lifted in the old man’s face.

His personal preferences and categories were sorely shaken as a voice commanded him to take his sandals off in the presence of the peculiar fire. As the very same fire expressed personality, being “the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”, a most holy reverence arose and was forever rooted in the depths of the herdsman Moses. The man standing on holy ground encountered the future, even eternity, in one single sequence of time – forever to be aware of a heavenly commission and the dimension of being sent.

The matter of sending produces meekness. “Moses was a very humble man, more so than any man on the face of the earth.” Apostolicity, the matter of being sent, is beyond anything else a matter of meekness. The sending involves representation, the sending means being an ambassador on heavenly terms – therefore Heaven must rule both mind and heart of the one professing this kind of comission. The categories and preferences of Heaven will cause ongoing perplexity and an obedience of the severest order.
Numbers 12:3

Another man, Isaiah, was introduced to the reality of sending by slightly other means. “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne…” Led to stand before the Holy One of Israel, his experience contained the same kind of shattering of earthly categories for the sake of a seeing according to eternal measures. Isaiah encountered the reality of sending in a most holy environment far beyond the conditions of the ordinary. But his sending from beyond was never to be expressed in alluring exaggerations for the sake of attracting an audience of itching ears. The Throne of Heaven was ever present in every word delivered by him, orally or by pen.
Isa 6:1

The environment of the sending is forever determined by fire and by holiness – and the result is always expressed in terms of brokenness, truth and humility. Having seen, having encountered this realm of reality produces men of caliber, men of trustworthiness. “Rulers will rule justly. Each will be like a shelter from the wind, a refuge from the rain, like streams of water in a dry land and the shade of a massive rock in an arid land.” Apostolicity offers this kind of environment. We need to reach out for that which lies beyond. The realm of sending offers holiness, tenderness, truth and humility. This is the Davidic reality, the apostolic environment, to be preached as the Kingdom of Heaven, which holds its gates open to men and women who are willing and daring to reach beyond, far beyond, that which is marked by earthliness.