Jesus' Mission Statement

Most organizations and companies have a Mission Statement, a couple of sentences that lays out the objectives and purposes they hope to accomplish. There were several of these plaques in the office where I worked most of my career.  A friend of mine recently sent me several verses in the Gospels where Jesus said, "I am come" or "I have come."  These seem like mission statements to me.

John 10:10  "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."  He was drawing a contrast between himself, as the true shepherd, and hirelings, those who were "thieves and robbers."  The false Messiahs, like "robbers and thieves," have come to "steal and to kill and to destroy."  Jesus came to give life, abundant and eternal life.

John 12:46   "I am come to be a light to the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not remain in darkness."  To enlighten just means to give understanding.  In our natural state, we cannot figure out why we were placed on this earth, what is expected of us, how we should live, and we do not know what happens after death.  Jesus answered these existential questions.  "For judgement I am come I to this world, that they which see not might see, and they which see might be made blind" (John 9:39).  He came that we might understand the purpose of life, and that those who think they get it will realize they are actually lost and wandering in darkness.

John 18:37.  Jesus told Pilate that he was the truth.  "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." Pilate's response is perhaps the common response of all thinking men:  "What, really, is true."  At some point in our life, most of us realize that much of what we have been taught is not true.  What can we possible put our trust and confidence in?  

Mark 2:17  "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."  Luke 19:10. "For the Son of Man came to seek and save that which was lost."  The Lord understood that it was not the "good" people who would respond to his message;  the rich, the talented, the popular.  No, it was the childlike and the needy who would love the simple truth as it is in Jesus. "Blessed are the poor in spirit," "Blessed are the meek," and "Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness."  They are the ones who will obtain the blessing of God.