Go...

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Matthew 28:16

1. Then Jesus came to them and said, INITIATOR OF MISSION
2. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. POWER OF MISSION
3. Therefore go DIRECTION OF MISSION
4. and make disciples - OBJECTIVE OF MISSION
5. of all nations, EXTENT OF MISSION
6. baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, INITIATION OF MISSION
7. and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. OBEDIENCE OF MISSION
8. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” PROMISE OF MISSION

I have spent some time recently looking at this statement of Jesus and considering the implications for us in the 21st century. Various questions and thoughts have arisen, which include the following:

• I must presume that I need also to 'obey everything Jesus has commanded'
• Obedience requires teaching 
• Teaching is by disciples who have gone
• The command is made to disciples not to a disciple
• How many of the commands of Jesus are to do with what to believe compared to how to act?
• Is it possible to be a disciple of Jesus if we are not going and making disciples?
• Was this command meant for just the apostles or to all disciples of Jesus? 
• Is it reasonable to understand the verse in this way? Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, BY baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you
• What are the 'everything' commands of Jesus?
• Don't try to teach others until I am doing this myself
• Surely the early disciples would have understood that this very command of Jesus was one of the commands that should be taught to the nations. This would therefore mean that all disciples should: go, make disciples, baptise, teach
  
  
  Challenging thoughts and huge possible implications
  
  
  
  
  
  

What kind of boat are we?

We are not a battleship, we are unable to go to war

We are not a cruiseship, we are not there for the enjoyment of the passengers

We are not a tugboat , we are unable to spend our time trying to turn a much larger vessel

We are not a fishing boat, we cannot do large scale fishing

We are a lifeboat, focused on saving individuals that we come across by being trained ourselves

Persecution - The Seed of Blessing

The centenary of the start of the First World War has just taken place and I alongside many others have been deeply moved by the stories of the sacrifice of so many for the benefit of others. Laying your life down is the ultimate withdrawal of your own desires, wants and needs for the benefit of others. Recognising that your own hopes, dreams, plans and ambitions have to become subservient to a larger, wider requirement of a more important mission

 

Jesus said it perfectly when he said that 'Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.'(John 15:13) Many of our Christian brothers and sisters in different parts of the world are not so much laying down their lives but having their lives snatched from them in the most grotesque and barbaric way. People that Jesus loves and died for, have somehow come to the point where they think that killing Christians is God's will. I wonder if any of them realise that they are inadvertently copying probably the greatest Christian missionary of all time -the Apostle Paul. 

 

It is not The Islamic State who invented Christian persecution, all they are doing is pathetically copying many others who have gone before. Paul, before his conversion, set the bar very low in his hate-filled opposition to the followers of Jesus. 'Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples.' (Acts 9:1) Fulfilling the words of him whose followers he was seeking to destroy, he failed to see that all he was doing was planting the seeds of his own salvation. The very seeds of persecution would drop into the ground and bear fruit leading to the greatest Christian expansion of all time. 

 

'I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. ²⁵ The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. (John 12:24) Jesus was of course talking about his own death and the beautiful impact that it would have on the rest of history. The devil, the Jewish religious hierarchy and the might of the Roman Empire thought that killing Jesus would end his subversive activities. In reality, like today, the death of God's people is the very seed that will ensure that the Kingdom of God will keep growing and one day will fill the whole earth, in fact the whole creation

None of this of course means that we should not oppose Christian persecution, that we should not do all we can to stand alongside our brothers and sisters in Christ and pray for their protection. However, what is happening is not a sign that God's plan is being thwarted but rather is an indication that the world is ready for a new proclamation and demonstration of the beauty and wonder of the gospel of Christ. 

And how am I going to respond to this changing opportunity, am I going to be quiet and act as if the message of Christ is an out of date, irrelevant, un-scientific load of clap-trap. Or am I going to renew my love for Christ, my love for His word, my love for his people and my belief that Jesus is the hope of all nations including the Islamic State, Syria, Iraq, Israel, Palestine etc. 

 

The Gospels

I was looking through some old notes recently and found this from last year. The challenge for me remains, all other issues in my Christian life are secondary to this one.

I have to confess, although it is not easy, that I have never been that keen on the Gospels! I love the Bible and try to read it from cover to cover each year, but I have always preferred other bits to the story about Jesus. I find it hard to admit and even harder to understand why this is the case, but I have come to realise that it is definitely true

However three things have happened over the past few months that have started to change this situation. 

Firstly I have stopped my regular practice of reading from Genesis to Revelation each year to concentrate on just reading the Gospels. As I have done this over and over again, the wonder and beauty and stunning greatness of His life have started to impact me again. My faith is utterly meaningless if not rooted in a historic figure who lived in first century Israel. His teaching is awesome, but good instruction without the instructor is not going to cut it. Christianity is about Christ, about His life-changing life, about His death-defeating death, about His resurecting resurrection. Everything about my faith can look right, but if Christ is not central then everything else is wrong. 

Secondly, I have realised in a fresh way that Jesus is the lens through which we understand every other truth in the Bible. Jesus is the truth of God, the word of God, the revelation of God. All Scripture leads to Him, is empowered by Him and written for Him. Any deepening of understanding of Scripture will lead to a corresponding deepening of understanding of Christ

Thirdly, I have been impacted by Paul's words in Philippians:

[3:8] What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ  [9] and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. [10] I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, [11] and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

I am slowly learning how to say the words 'I want to know Christ' for myself

You Belong to Me

I was travelling down the M4 last week when I saw a man on a motor bike. Not particularly unusual until I saw what was written on his leather jacket. Accros the back of his jacket in bold letters was written, 'If you belong to Christ then you belong to me.'

As Christians our relationship with one another should not be determined by a host of secondary issues but by our relationship to Christ. If a person 'belongs to Christ' then they are part of the people of God, we have become part of the same family and are heirs together.

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. Galatians 3:26-29

I have recently become disturbed by the prevelence of comments, tweets and various posts amongst Christians that seem to forget this truth. It doesn't mean that doctrinal issues that devide us are not important it is just that they should be dealt with in a way that first recognises that we 'belong to one another.'

Riddled with Grace

Riddled with grace

Pervaded by compassion

Infested by beauty

Punctured by self-sacrifice

Polluted by freedom

Besieged by forgiveness

Entangled with reconciliation

Subverted by blessing

I would rather have atheism or agnosticism than graceless Christianity

Whoever....

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever (rich, poor, male, female, black, white, Muslim, Hindu, gay, straight, atheist, theist, agnostic, communist, politician, banker, drug user, drunk, child abuser, wife beater, anorexic, slave, slave trader, old, young, nice, horrible, intelligent, reformed Calvinist, non-reformed Arminian, Israeli, Palistinian, raped, rapist, homeless,) believes in him shall not perish but have eternal Life  

John 3:16