Get Off Your Pews & Go

 

Matthew 5:37 “But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.”

 

I remember moving back to my hometown of Anaheim, California after moving to Fresno, California for ten years. During that decade in Central California, many life-changing things occurred (new job, children being born, our first house, snow skiing, volleyball, and experiencing  an epiphany of God that woke me to the reality of the kingdom and the Lord’s involvement in the affairs of mankind. These experiences continued when I returned to Anaheim and joined a local church. I met my great Christian Mentor Bill Stiles, who taught and inspired me to dig deeper into the Holy Scriptures and not be satisfied with surface-level luke-warmness in me faith. But, even more, that the Great Commission of Jesus Christ in Matthew 28:18-20, “And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age”, was not the Great Suggestion; it is a Commandment. 

 

John 4:35-37 “Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’”

 

Bill would always say: "you cannot know what you are saved to, until first you know what you have been saved from". Simply put, a person who doesn’t know what sin is nor their sin's consequences, will not accept a Savior. Most people believe that just about everybody is going to Heaven, either by good works out-weighting bad works, making honest mistakes, momentary miscues and innocent ignorance, or by not hearing or understanding the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In Bill’s computer-terms: “Because of our sin, the default is Hell.” That is why he could  say: “ everywhere I go, and everywhere I look, I see the need for ministry.” So many people have a false-assurance of Heaven on a pseudo-faith in a counterfeit Savior that is not Lord of their life. Do you see it? 

 

The Apostle Paul explains in Romans 10:13-14, “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?” That first church in Anaheim and many other local churches did not “Go and make disciples”, but expected people to find their own way there and start coming to their church. But, in Matthew 9:37-38 Jesus said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” It is a part of being a sanctified, believing follower of Jesus Christ and a citizen of Heaven to be salt and light in a lost and dying world while we are here. 

 

The moment that you first believed, you were not transported directly to the Kingdom of God in Heaven, because there is evangelism ministry needed here and now. Disciples make disciples that make disciples, so get up and go. Lead someone to Jesus with the Good News of salvation at the foot of the Cross. To not do so is to disobey the Lord and leaves the people in darkness, and that is neither compassion or care about their eternal souls. So, get off your pews and go make disciples, telling them the Gospel truth and Good News. Decrease the population of Hell in the process.

 

In Christ, Brian