God Call

I believe that most Christians are well-meaning when it comes to missions and the Great Commission. I would never expect a believer to think that missions is a bad thing or even not Biblical. Most would certainly agree that the Great Commission is a mandate given by Jesus for all believers to follow. When pastors preach on Matthew 28:19-20 they always get plenty of amens! The question then is why are more Christians not following this command. I don’t think that most people sit around thinking about how they are going to actively rebel against what God has told them to do, but the fact of the matter is the mandate is not being followed by the vast majority of people who call themselves Christians. There are many answers to why the command is not followed, but I want to focus on one in particular. I believe it to be the biggest culprit. Bear with me as I set it up…

In Genesis 12 we read the Abrahamic Covenant which essentially claims that God is going to bless Abraham and his people so that they, in turn, can bless all the nations of the earth. In other words, God is going to give Abraham land, a large family, wealth, and a great name, so that he can use those gifts to bring glory to God by redeeming a lost world back to God. This applied to the Israelites who would go through seasons of following this command and seasons of rebellion. In the end, the Israelites decided not to share the blessings, so that God eventually hardened their hearts completely (Romans 11:25) and shut off the blessing. Because of Israel’s unbelief, the blessing of the gospel was given to the Gentiles. Now, about 2000 years later, we sit as Americans in the very same position.

The blessings that Abraham received are the same blessings we enjoy today. God gave Abraham land, and today we have unprecedented access to countries that were closed for hundreds of years to the gospel. In two or three days we can literally be anywhere on the planet. God gave Abraham a large family, and in America we have many who profess to be believers and churches everywhere. God gave Abraham great wealth, and in the same way God has richly blessed America.  I have seen poverty, and our poorest are rich compared to most of the world. Our churches contain an incredible amount of wealth – enough to complete the Great Commission if we wanted. God gave Abraham a great name, and he has given America great fame.  I realize that the media shows that the rest of the world hates us, but when I travel overseas I find that to not be true. Everyone wants to move to America.

The question is what are we going to do with these incredible blessings. Will we hoard them for our own good or will we turn around and bless the nations as God commanded? Do we hold our blessings loosely with an open hand or clench them tightly in our fist? I had the privilege of hearing Todd Ahrend speak on this subject in a Perspectives class a couple of months ago. He made the statement that most Christians are well-intentioned, but they are too busy managing their blessings to make an impact for God’s kingdom. Please hear this: We cannot take our blessings to heaven with us, and we will be rewarded in Heaven based on how we use our blessings here on earth (read 1 Corinthians 3:10-15).

God has greatly blessed you and me. It is now up to us to decide what to do with that blessing. Will we build our own little temporal kingdom or will we use it to build God’s eternal kingdom?