The day a person receives salvation is a wonderful day. We are very excited about our salvation and we bask in the glow of our direct experience with Jesus Christ. At this point, we usually do one of three things:
1. We run out and tell everybody that we know about Jesus.
2. We take all of that joy and excitement home with us, lock the doors, and wait for the rapture to come.
3. We do both. We start out excited. We go and tell a couple of people about Jesus. Then somewhere along the way life takes some wind out of our sails, and we begin to hold on tightly to our salvation as though it’s the only thing of value that we have in this world. We’re still saved; but we don’t tell anyone about it. We simply hold onto our gift, suffer in this “mean old world”, and wait to die so that we can finally be happy with Jesus in Heaven.
But no matter what we do, very few of us die immediately after salvation. That’s a good thing. The reason we don’t die immediately after salvation is because we have work to do. We have the wonderful opportunity to follow the mandate of The Great Commission. You can find The Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20. It says, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age (niv).” The Great Commission gives us our purpose after salvation. We are to make more disciples so that as many people as possible will have the same opportunity that we did to receive the gift of salvation. The Great Commission gives us everything that we need to complete this task. It gives us the job requirement. It gives us instructions on how to complete the job requirement. And it gives us the support structure needed to motivate us while we are doing the job. It is these three things that I have chosen to focus on.
Our job requirement is to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”. As a born again believer, it is our job to go back out into the world and make disciples. How do we do that? We simply tell everyone that we meet about the plan of salvation. We are required to tell the world that the wages of sin is death, but that the gift of God is eternal life. We need to let the people that we interact with know that they are a sinner, just as we are sinners. But we also need to let them know that they have the same opportunity to be free from that sin just as we are now free from that sin. This requires us to let down our own walls in order to show the other person exactly where our lives were before we were in Christ; and where our lives are now. It is important to understand that it is not our job to force them to accept Christ. Our job is simply to expose them to Christ so that the Holy Spirit will have an opportunity to convict them.
As we are completing the job requirement of making disciples, we will begin to perform the second part of The Great Commission. We begin to “teach them to obey everything I have commanded you”. In this phase of the process, we need to train the new disciples to live the life that we are living (should be living). And how do we do that? We need to make sure that they are growing in their spiritual walk with Jesus Christ. They should be growing and maturing a little bit every day just as we should be growing and maturing. It is very important during this phase of the process that we let the new disciple know that there is not a point of completion in our walk with Christ until we get to Heaven. We should be learning about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit on a daily basis. This helps us to improve our relationship with God and understand the will of God in our lives. It is also important to let the new disciple know that we don’t have all of the answers. By revealing our struggles and successes we give the new disciple the freedom to make mistakes. But we also give them the opportunity to get up, dust themselves off, and continue the journey of their own spiritual growth.
The third part of the process is the most exciting part. It’s the part where Jesus tells us, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age”. The first two parts of The Great Commission tell you what you are supposed to do. The third part tells you what Jesus is going to do. This life can be unfair, unkind, and unsupportive. Sometimes, it does not even appear that we have any support from our family or our friends. That can be discouraging. And it can also make us question if it is even worth it to continue trying. But Jesus said that He will be with you even until the end of this age. That means we have the strongest support structure in the world! We are not expected to complete this task by ourselves. We have the one and only Son of God with us, around us, and in us to help us complete the task. That also means that we are guaranteed to have the victory over this world because Jesus has already overcome the world. So as we continue to make disciples, teach disciples, and train disciples; we are assured that our support structure (Jesus) is there to equip us with the tools that we need in order to be successful in everything that we do for the Kingdom.
So as you go back to work for the Kingdom of God, I want you to remember these three things. Remember that you have the job requirement of making disciples. Remember that you have the instruction to teach them all the things that Christ is teaching you in order to continue spiritual growth. And remember that you have the best support structure in the world in Jesus Christ. As we and the new disciples continue to follow Christ, we will all continue in our spiritual growth with Christ. Lastly, understand that as long as we are diligently following the instructions of Christ, He will be with us. And if Christ is with us, there is nothing that we cannot accomplish for the good of the Kingdom. So go back into the world! Share the good news of Jesus Christ with everyone that you meet. It is a wonderful present from God that you can constantly give away, yet never run out of. It is eternal life!
Peace and Love,
Back to Homepage
No comments:
Post a Comment