When you think about it, there are three choices with the Great Commission. You can either go, or you can send, or you can be disobedient. Ignoring the cause is not a Christian option.”
Just before Christ ascended into Heaven, He said, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). This means that, wherever we go, we need to be on mission reaching every man, woman, boy and girl with the Gospel. Everything we do ought to help bring people to Jesus. But there is also a unique area within everything else we do as Christians, and churches specifically, called missions. Since the Christian missionary enterprise began in Jerusalem, the whole world is the mission field. J. Oswald Smith said, “The mission of the church is missions.” Charles Spurgeon said, “If there be any one point in which the Christian Church ought to keep its fervor at a white heat, it is concerning missions. If there be anything about which we cannot tolerate Luke warmness, it is the matter of sending the gospel to a dying world.” I am specifically referring to that ministry among ministries within the local church called missions. Where we send missionaries, people who give their life as a living sacrifice and put a wholehearted effort to reach people of other cultures and countries or serve in a supporting role for those who do.
We can’t be like the story of the little boy who was leaving to go get an ice cream cone. Half teasing, the Pastor asked the boy, “Why don’t you save that dollar and give it to a missionary?” The quick-witted youngster responded, “I thought about that. But I think I’ll buy the ice cream cone and ask the person at the store to give the dollar to a missionary.”
When it comes to MISSIONS a lot of people and churches want to “pass the buck,” literally. We have been called to give our life as a living sacrifice. You and I have a God-given, Jesus-mandated mission: The GREAT COMMISSION (Co-Mission) found in Matthew 28:18-20, “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
