We call these words of Jesus the \u201cGreat Commission\u201d: \u201cGo therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age\u201d (Matthew 28:19-20).<\/p>\n
But what makes the Great Commission so great?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s great in its responsibility<\/p>\n
Every follower of Jesus has the responsibility to share Jesus everywhere he or she goes. Jesus tells us in Luke 14:23 that we are to \u201ccompel them to come in….\u201d This word translated \u201ccompel\u201d means to urge upon, to press.<\/p>\n
In Acts 18:4, the apostle Paul \u201cpersuaded both Jews and Greeks.\u201d The eternal destiny of souls is at stake and God has given His followers the responsibility go and tell.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s great in its reach<\/p>\n
We will never meet a person whom God doesn\u2019t love nor want to save. Red, yellow, black, brown and white, they are all precious in His sight. The apostle Peter said it this way in 2 Peter 3.9: \u201cThe Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is long suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but for all to come to repentance.\u201d<\/p>\n
As pastors and churches make plans for the summer, for instance, don\u2019t forget to include opportunities for sharing Jesus. In their book \u201cWhy They Stray,\u201d Steve Parr and Tom Crites report that 75 percent of adult Christians say they accepted Christ before age 16, according to a national survey they conducted. \u201cResearch has shown that people are more likely to accept Christ as a child than they are as an adult,\u201d Parr and Crites write. \u201cSome have reported that the probability of a person experiencing salvation in adulthood is only 6%.\u201d(1)<\/p>\n
They go on to urge, \u201c[G]et strategic about sharing the gospel with children in your mission field.\u201d In other words: Go after the souls of boys and girls while their hearts are still tender toward the things of God.<\/p>\n
What is on your church calendar this summer for reaching children for Jesus? How about Vacation Bible School? What about children\u2019s camp? Is a children\u2019s summer sports camp a possibility? What about a children\u2019s fun day? Every church can provide something, regardless of size, to help introduce children to Jesus. God forbid the children in your community echo the words found in Jeremiah 8:20, \u201cHarvest has passed, summer has ended, but we have not been saved.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s great in its results<\/p>\n
The results are making disciples and equipping them to live godly in Christ Jesus, which includes sharing Jesus. Jesus said in Matthew 4:19: \u201cFollow me, and I will make you fishers of men.\u201d Here He gives us a command and a promise. The late evangelist Vance Havner said, \u201cJesus takes the disciple and makes not a depository but a dispenser out of him, and through him reaches others.\u201d He goes on to say that \u201cfishing for souls proceeds following the Savior.\u201d<\/p>\n
We can fish without following Jesus but we cannot follow Jesus without fishing. We fish to the degree we follow Jesus. Or as Havner said, \u201cSoul-winning is a product of discipleship.\u201d<\/p>\n
Responsibility, reach, results — keep in mind these simple yet profound words that remind us of the Great Commission and, indeed, its true greatness.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
1. Steve Parr and Tom Crites. Why They Stray (WestBow Press, 2015), p. 40.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We call these words of Jesus the \u201cGreat Commission\u201d: \u201cGo therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[221,1092],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7543"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7543\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}