The great commission

Acts 1:8

But you shall receive power (ability, efficiency, and might) when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends (the very bounds) of the earth.

Matthew 28: 19-20

Go then and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you…

The command Christ Jesus gave the church to go into the world and preach the good news was one of his last words before being taken up into heaven. As the last words of a dying man are usually about things that are dear to his heart, I believe this command is very dear to the heart of the Lord. It is a fair assessment to say that though Jesus is coming back soon,  the love of many has waxed cold. The church seems to be occupied by so many things apart from actively obeying this command.  Yes, we feed the poor, cloth the naked and do every other humanitarian activities, which are great, but the world also does all these things. There is one thing the world can’t give: the good news of Jesus Christ and his saving grace that is available to all. All our humanitarian support, though part of what we are to do, can not replace the need to evangelize the lost. 

The enemy of the church is busy finding cares for the church to focus on, so the real deal becomes secondary; the church is now preoccupied with cares of this life that the assignment of the master is often forgotten or neglected. Members of the body of Christ are so focused on what their temporal needs are and forget the eternal need of the World. While we are so busy asking him for this or that, the master is saying if you love me, obey my commandment. The enemy is keeping the church focused on self that all we pray about is about ourselves - what we want, need, desire, anticipate, love... and the list goes on. These are things Jesus has told us in Mathew 6:25-33 that he has got covered.

He did not leave us alone to get it done in anyway we can; he gave us the helper, the Holy Spirit, who leads us into all truth. For some of us, we are afraid of what people’s response will be; you are not alone, the disciples also had to pray for boldness to preach the gospel. Peter actually denied he ever knew the man he had walked with for three and a half years. After the Holy Spirit came into his life, he preached and about three thousand men came to the Lord in a day. I pray the Lord grants us the boldness to reach out to the unbelieving members of our families, our friends, neighbors, co-workers, and the world at large.

The enemy will do anything to distract us from this great commission. We are often occupied with our lives that we neglect such a great duty that the Lord gave to us. We are usually carried away with the doctrine of churches and forget about the ultimate yearning of the heart of the father. The church is full of people back biting, slandering, arguments, hunger for self gratification, lust after various temporal things, talking about one another in the name of wanting to pray for the person; all these are the devices of the enemy to distract us from reaching out to the world. Until the church is in unity with members of his own body, we may never be able to reach out to the people that need the light that we carry. We need to die to self; Paul said “I count my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus as given me; the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace”. We need to get to the point where the desire of the father is top priority. We need to reach out and shine our lights to a world that seems to get darker each and every day. It is time for us, the church, to rise up and reach out. We need to stop beating our own body and reach out to the world that waits in earnest expectation for our manifestation.  

People are dying without having a relationship with God, we need to have a passion for these souls and use whatever way the Spirit leads us to reach out to this world. Do not despise the gift you have; God can use any of our gifts to reach out to the world. We just need to be faithful in the office he has called us to.

Matthew 9:37-38

Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest

Let us reach out every way we can, let us pray to God to bring more laborers to join in. The harvest is ripe, Jesus will be coming back soon, let’s drop everything that easily weighs us down and work the works of him who sent us. He does not want anyone to perish, but the more we keep our faith to ourselves and not reach out, people will perish. We can not convict people of their ways, neither can we change people; that is the work of the Holy Spirit. We can however, tell others about him, we can tell them who he is, why he came, why he died, what he has done for us as individuals and what he can do for them - that he forgives, that he forgets their pasts, that he truly loves regardless.

Lord of the harvest, I pray you send laborers into your harvest in Jesus name.