22 October 2023

OBEYING & FULFILLING THE GREAT COMMISSION

(Growing in Faith, in Truth & in Spirit: GFTS 17)

Before Christ ascended to Heaven, He gave the Great Commission that the Church and all His disciples should “Go into all the world to preach and the Gospel to the whole Creation and make disciples of all nations” (Mark 16:15; Mtt.28:19). Then He also commanded us to be His “witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the world” after the Holy Spirit comes upon all believers (Acts 1:8). This is His mandate to the Church and all believers, so we have no excuse not to be involved in missions. Not to do so is disobedience to His command.

Missions is the heartbeat of God because He is a Missionary God. He sent His Beloved Son, Jesus, as the Missionary from Heaven to earth: to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom and to lay down His life for all sinners. That is because of His great love for sinners: “God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). If we love God then we must love as He loves. That also means that we must preach the Gospel and be involved in reaching the unsaved in order to prove our love for Him as Paul says, “The love of Christ compels me” (2 Cor.5:14).

The Great Commission says we must preach the Gospel to all Creation. That means every person in every nation in each succeeding generation must hear the Good News that God loves them and wants them to be saved through believing in Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. It also says we are to “make disciples of all nations”. The word “nation” means “pagans” or “heathens”. It implies “all peoples” who are outside of Christ or have never heard of Him.

In other words, our mission is to focus on the 3 billion Unreached People Groups (UPGs) of the world. This was also Paul’s vision in his missionary work: “It has always been my ambition to preach the Gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. Rather, as it is written, ‘Those who were not told about Him will see, and those who have not heard will understand’” (Rom.15:20-21). This should also be our focus in our prayer for missions and our involvement in supporting only those who are reaching out to the UPGs. Doing this will help us hasten the evangelization of all peoples.

We are now living in the last days of the End Time, and the appearing of the Lord Jesus may be very soon. We must preach the Gospel as a witness to all nations before the end comes. We need to win as many souls as we can and plant churches in places where there are no churches. We must focus all our efforts – prayer for missions and missionaries and supporting those who are reaching the UPGs. The harvest is plentiful (3 billion) and the labourers are few, so we must pray for labourers, train and send them out to reap the harvest. That is why supporting Missionary Training Schools is so important, because they are training and sending out competent missionaries for the harvest among the UPGs.

May we be committed and faithful to this vision and mission before His Appearing. AMEN! 

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