A person’s last words reach out and grab us because they are often the most important thing a person wants to get across. Jesus’ last words on earth, His last command, are part of the Main Thing He wants us to make the Main Thing. We call it THE GREAT COMMISSION: 19 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, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
The great commission is not about making decisions, not about making attenders, not about making donors or even good church members. The great commission is not about filling seats and offering bags. It is about investing your life in a few people who will invest their lives in a third spiritual generation. When Jesus truly gets inside of us, we embark on the great adventure of making disciples.
The great adventure (wrapped up in the word Go in Matthew 28:19) is not so much about changing location as it is that wherever we are located, we are involved in the adventure of shaping lives for Jesus. God is in charge of our journey, our transfer, our layoff, even the recession that forces relocation or the orders from Uncle Sam. Like the disciples in Acts 8:1, 4, He scatters us so we intersect with new lives who have never heard it before, or never heard it as presented in our life and words. God has designed us so that our lives will be just what others need to understand the good news. God has designed us to that our lives will rub off on others’ lives…and that’s the Great Commission.
God places us where we aren’t comfortable, secure, or even have the American dream—because the main thing is not about getting, it’s about giving. Jesus died take us into dangerous places to fish for men. Adventure may take many forms, but, basically, it is getting us out of our comfort zone—going to the street to serve the hungry, teaching ESL in a community center, risking your health by going to the mission field to live for a few weeks or months. Getting out of our comfort zone may risk our sanity by hanging out in a children's classroom for 90 minutes during a weekend church service. Adventure is welcoming people to the church door, or to your castle gate…letting them in, getting to know them. Now, that’s adventure.
Ask God to help us stop living life defensively, trying to keep what we’ve got. Ask God to help us see life as Adventure! It’s part of this Great Commission thing—the Main Thing!
Friday, September 18, 2009
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Solomon said in Ecc. 1 Anything we have thats not of God is vanity. Paul said in 1 Cor. Anything we have thats not of God will burn up in the fire. Great message Dave on Sunday (God gave us from His Holy Spirit through you) about living the adventure God has for us. PTL and pray we can see into His kingdom and not the world and that we can do His work and not our own!
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