Go

Go

Read: Matthew 28:16-20

“Go and make disciples of all nations.”

Matthew 28:19

“We ought not to ask, ‘Can I prove that I ought to go?’ but, ‘Can I prove that I ought not to go?’”

—Charles Spurgeon

IN WORD Perhaps we’ve heard this so often that it’s lost its impact. Perhaps stories of missionaries and martyrs throughout the centuries have deadened us to the utterly astonishing nature of this command. Perhaps we just don’t care as much as we ought. We’ve lost the urgency. We’ve diverged from the plan.

The fact is that roughly four millennia after God promised to bless all the nations of the earth through Abraham’s descendants, and nearly two millennia after the ascension of Jesus, huge pockets of people—massive populations, in fact—have never heard that there is a Savior from the awful devastation of sin and death. We are uncomfortable that thousands of children on other continents starve to death, but we are numb to the eternal hunger of billions. We grieve over the ravages of disease in impoverished places, especially when the diseases could have been easily treatable; but we casually hold the antidote for the sin epidemic in our hands and let the pathogen with eternal consequences consume its many victims unhindered. Isn’t God more urgent than this? Is His passion to save really this sluggish?

IN DEED The God who pursues has issued a directive. The disciples of the High Commander are ordered to pray for pursuers to rush into His harvest, and even to go. It’s an urgent appeal, and it’s comprehensive as well. We are called to do more than spread the Word verbally; we are called to live it everywhere. Like light that floods a dark room, salt that influences a whole meal, or leaven that raises an entire loaf, we are urged to follow in the footsteps of the One who came to save. Those footsteps take us to a self- denying Cross for the benefit of others. It’s the kingdom way.

Jesus’ command is comprehensive, compelling, and urgent. Give. Pray. Go. Die, if necessary. Fill the world with His glory.