God Call

We had three great lessons yesterday at church that all went together perfectly! In Bible Study we started the fantastic Lifeway curriculum, The Gospel Project. In that first lesson we learned that God speaks through general and special revelation with power and authority. We are then blessed to even be able to hear his voice through God’s grace and mercy. And lastly his voice always calls us to a task that we a supposed to do out of faithful obedience. Our Lead Pastor, Jeff Crawford, then gave a message about the faith of Elijah, and he told the story of how God called the Israelites to cross the Jordan River by first stepping into it in faith. Our church was hugely blessed to have the Lead Pastor of Harvest Time, Marty Sloan, preach our Sunday evening message. He talked about how God works to use us in His work. Sometimes we over-spiritualize things when we just need to do something.

As Christians, we believe that Jesus is God and came to earth as a human both fully God and fully man. He was nailed to a cross in our place, died, was buried, and rose from the dead. He then, with all power and authority, gave all of us the general revelation to tell everyone on the planet this very message. We are blessed to be able to hear the message for ourselves and doubly blessed to be asked of Jesus to be apart of His plan to redeem the world. Now it is simply up to us to do something about it. Far too often, we hear this message, and we stop at feeling a warm fuzzy over the blessing of God. Most church members will never do anything about it. I have heard many teachers and pastors say that the reason for this is that people enjoy their comfort zones and by default fall back into them. This is exactly true, but I believe that it goes deeper than that. At the heart of every comfort zone is pride. The reason that more people are not following the Great Commission is because they are the center of the universe in their own minds. They really don’t see Jesus’ command as a blessing but a burden. They have a token gratitude for what Jesus did for them on the cross but not enough to feel like they owe him anything. It is as if all our churches are full a people eating an incredible feast with the best service, leaving a small tip in the offering plate, but skipping out on the bill. We do this for years on end and expect not to be judged by a holy and righteous God.

How about some hard questions: When was the last time someone came to know Christ because of you sharing your testimony? How many people from different nations will worship in heaven one day because of your work on the mission field? How many lost friends do you have, and how many of them have you invited to church or talked to them about spiritual matters?

We have to understand that God did not just throw out the Great Commission as an afterthought. It really is His plan to redeem a lost world. The question is not whether you will pray about it or attend another Bible study or come to church next Sunday, but what will you do about it! How will you be apart of reaching this world for Jesus Christ?