March 26, 2012
Today’s Text: Matthew 28:18-20
Today’s Key Thought: We are accountable to go!
It had been a grueling week. The disciples had seen their Messiah die and felt the anguish as the thought that evil had triumphed. It may have even entered their mind that they had been unwise to leave their lives to follow Jesus who eventually just died. And yet, then they felt the joy of seeing the most incredible thing to happen in all of history. This Jesus, who they had given their lives to follow, came back to life. They had seen him raise others back to life, and now they saw that He had defeated even His own death. Can you imagine being the disciples? Talk about going from hopelessness to complete joy! It must have been incredible.
Jesus then spends some time with them. He gets to their last conversation. All the teaching had come to this. He said, “All power is given to me in heaven and in earth…” That word “power” also has the idea of authority. I’m sure the disciples believed Him when He made that statement. Surely they though, “Yes you do have all authority! You are God and have defeated sin and death!” Based on this authority (“therefore”), He gives them a command. He tells them to “teach” or make disciples of “all nations.” We’ll look at the “teach” or make disciples part tomorrow. Today, I want us to think about this idea of going to all nations.
Jesus commanded the disciples and us to make disciples in all nations or people group. Now let me ask you a question: How many nations, or with how many cultures can you go to in at once? Of course the answer is that you can only be one nation at a time. Jesus wasn’t asking these disciples to individually go to every nation, but he was asking them to collectively go to every nation. That happens by each one “making disciples” wherever they go. No people group is exempt, and no follower of Jesus is exempt from this command. Anything Christ commanded us to do we will be held accountable for!
Application:
This may be the most important stewardship that we have because this is the mission for which Jesus came, and this is the mission that He sent us on. Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. Let me ask you this question- Is there a time in your schedule, or behavior in your life where you can honestly say that you are part of the disciple making process? When was the last time you shared the gospel with someone?
Study the Scriptures with Ben Jennings 
It has been a while since I have had the opportunity to share the gospel with anyone, sadlly. I need to be more prayerful about God putting people in my path to speak openly to, and then being in tune to this and bold. I guess lately I am just focused on what is happening in my life and not others. This to shall pass but it is a good reminder about getting saved and becoming a disciple. We need to tell others so they can tell others.
Great devotional in light of Missions month.
It’s been a while since I shared God’s word the last time I did was with my basketball team and I need to pray that God will give me more chances to tell others about his word.
I agree with Laura about how this is a great devotion that ties in with missions month. John Flowers metioned this when he was preaching yesterday. In Mark 16:15, it says to go into all of the world and preach to every creature. Like Pastor Ben had mentioned, this doesn’t exempt any Christ followers, it is a command. It’s kinda nerve wracking when you think about this as a command. It makes you evaluate yourself and wonder if you are obeying the command. I know for me personally, I have not been as involved in disciple making as I should be. This is actually what my burden is. (What we’ve been talking about with the story of Nehiamiah.) I don’t believe that the correlation of these messages and devotions are a coincidence but it’s by design. God’s trying to tell us something, trying to point out what is so extremely important and that we need to stand up for it. I’m so honored that God chooses us to use, and we should be thankful we have the opportunity to do things in the honor an glory of God. It’s time to get serious and be world changers.
Nehemiah*
thats really true 🙂 good job today mel, well you always do good job, but you know what I mean 😉
Going in to all the world and preaching the gospel is a huge command. What I thought was cool is that in the end of verse 20 it says ” And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” So its not like Jesus just said go into the world and preach the gospel but He says that he will be with us. How it applies to me today is that yeah going and telling people about Christ can be difficult but He promises to be with me.
I love that too Ryan. Even though it’s sometimes a scary thing, we know that He’s with us every step of the way. Great point!
Good Point Ryan!
No matter who you are God wants us to be missionaries. You can be anywhere to talk about the gospel. Wherever YOU go, that’s where you can be a light. You don’t need to move across the world to be a missionary. Just going to school everyday can be missionary work. This weekend I tried to be a light to my dad, but it’s really hard because he has all this anger towards God. I have a hard time knowing what to say to him. I always hope God will give me the words, but I feel like my words dont affect him at all. Besides that, I don’t really remember the last time I shared the gospel. I try to just share a little bit of God all the time by little things. For example, someone asked me why I’m so happy to go to church on Wednesdays and why its so important to me and I just said something small..like because I have Jesus or something like that. Soo I just try to be a witness with small things like that as often as I can. But I haven’t done anything like that in awhile…
Please for my friend and her aunt. Her aunt is having surgery to remove some cancer
please pray* for
I will pray for her (before you even read this)! Good job today Grace, Your school and your home are your best missionary fields at this time in your life! “Work ’em girl”, our obedience is what is required, not the results!
The last time I told somebody abOut Jesus is when I helped my friend get saved.ive been trying to tell other people but I don’t have the guts.i need to work on that and pray about that cuz I want to be a missionary.if I get better at that and if that’s what God’s callin me to do then I will do it.i agree too that this goes along with missions month.for examPle what Jon flowers said yesterday about going into the world and preach to every creature.its something I need to work on and please pray for me with that and for our family and an unspoken for me thanks love you guys!!! ❤ 🙂
I think sometimes Christians don’t really look at this verse as a command. Well I didn’t. For a while the thought never occurred to me that not doing what these verses say is actually disobeying Jesus. Because He told us to do this, if we don’t (because of fear, laziness, etc..) we’re not obeying Him. I don’t know about you guys, but I want to do everything I can to obey God!
I like what Ryan said about the last verse! Jesus didn’t just give us this huge command to follow then said “well you’re on your own now, bye!” He said He’ll be with us always, until the end of the world. Only God knows when the end of the world is, but isn’t that a cool promise!?
Alexis, it is a very cool promise, and in case we feel beat up when we do witness to others, and it doesn’t seem to go so well, HE says that he would send us “another Comforter” while he was bodily away from us! HE has covered all the bases all the time for our protection and for His glory!