Same Old Mandate

For some Christians, world missions is just one fine idea to toss around in church. They believe the great commission, they believe that the gospel of Jesus should be brought to all parts of the world and they believe that the church has to do it. But not by them. Not when it takes them away from their comfort zones, not when it’s such a huge inconvenience to their carefully-planned lives, and certainly not when they have exciting careers to work on.

While most Christians think of world missions as a secondary business of the church, God values it as top priority assignment. The idea is actually as old as the Old Testament. When God blessed Abraham in Genesis 12: 3, He said it plain and simple, “all the nations of the earth will be blessed through you.” When Jonah was eaten alive by a huge fish, he was actually running away from world missions, from reaching the politically powerful city of Nineveh.

The prophets in olden times saw the day when God would blanket the whole world with the message of the gospel just like the waters cover the sea. Godly men and women from many generations knew it, but curiously enough, the vast majority of the church today is ignoring it. To the church, it looks as if world missions is just a post script in the Bible, an afterthought in the master plan of God.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

At the very heart of the gospel is the mandate to reach the nations for Jesus, in fact, the only time when Christ is coming back is when the gospel is already preached to all nations (Matt. 24: 14). God is serious about reaching the nations that Jesus won’t come back until all people groups have heard of the gospel.

I know what you’re thinking. This all sounds cool and great but there’s no way you could get involved. Not because you don’t want to but because your local church doesn’t include this in its agenda. I could only sigh with you. I can’t offer you a work around in this but I wish, I really wish that world missions become part of the agenda of even the smallest church in the world for the sheer reason that this is the very heartbeat of God since the fall of Adam.