10/27/2023
The hardest question that any missionary faces isn’t “can I go out and do this?”, but rather “is Jesus able to do this through me?” It all boils down to faith, and it begins with the faith of the missionaries themselves. Going out and reciting scripture can be done by anyone, but believing belongs to the disciple, and what is a missionary if not first a disciple?
“When he entered the house, the blind men came to him, and Jesus said to them, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" They said to him, "Yes, Lord."”
Matthew 9:28 ESV
As we have been discussing over the past days, we are all asked to spread the gospel, but we haven’t dwelled on the subject of faith, and exactly what we are being asked to do. First we are asked to make other disciples... to teach others of Jesus and how to obey His commandments, or in other words, to have faith in him and to have enough faith in Him that we will obey Him. Then we are asked to lead them to baptism. In order to do these things it requires more of us than just the ability to teach a subject; it demands that within us lives a deep and abiding faith, and that we have become disciples ourselves. If these things are true in us, and we accept this mission, then He will empower us, and be with us in this endeavor. Jesus tells us this Himself; it is called the great commission... do you believe in Him with the intensity it takes to complete this rabbi’s journey?
“And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."”
Matthew 28:18-20 ESV
Oswald Chambers drove this point home in his writing. He spoke of the faith of the missionary himself as being the greatest challenge in doing what Jesus had sent him to do. Listen…
“The challenge to the missionary does not come on the line that people are difficult to get saved, that backsliders are difficult to reclaim, that there is a wadge of callous indifference; but along the line of His own personal relationship to Jesus Christ.... The one great challenge is - Do I know my Risen Lord.? Do I know the power of His indwelling Spirit?” - Oswald Chambers
Most any skilled con man can gather a crowd and speak as though he were a man of faith, but only a disciple can speak with the authority of God. Jesus said “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”, and so it will be with those He sends out, because He will be with them.
“Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you." And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit.”
John 20:21-22 ESV
Believer, disciple, and vessel filled with the Holy Spirit. If you are no longer one of these then you are not prepared to continue the calling of the great commission. If at any point you lose your faith, you can no longer teach in spirit and truth of the fullness of faith, and can only speak of what you have seen… not what you know in your heart... in that moment of realization you should withdraw as a rabbi from the harvest field of souls until you have rekindled your own passion and belief in Jesus Christ, and have regained your faith in God. At the instant of your unbelief you became a fraud, and no better than a con man... attempting to teach what you yourself no longer espouse, but all is not lost.
If you find that your own personal relationship with Jesus, and the Father is suffering, then go immediately to the Word and into your prayer closet; seek counsel from a mentor who can lead you beyond the pangs of doubt you are feeling. Satan comes hard against those who go out in the name of Jesus; He attempts to drag them into the desert where he tests them sorely, but do not despair because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.
“Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.”
1 John 4:4-6 ESV
So, today as you rise to go out, determine your status. Ask yourself if you go as a person of deep faith. Ask yourself if you are simply a moral person, or perhaps an actor. If the answer comes back as anything other than “I am a person of deep and abiding faith”, then your works are empty, and what you seek to do you will pursue alone. If the answer is anything but “I go as a man or woman of faith”, then seek another endeavor until you can resolve the lacking, or spiritual conflict, within you. Pray as if the salvation of your very soul depends upon it. But, if your faith is secure, and Jesus is the Lord of your life, then go with great joy and spread the gospel as if it were the very breath of life to you, because the breath you breathe in and out is contagious and will infect those around you with either the good news and eternal life of the gospel, or the emptiness and death of hollow words. Pray until faith flows from you as living water from Christ, and runs over with the grace of God.
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for the measure of faith you have given me, and I thank you for leading me to increase in it day by day as we walk together. I ask that you fill me with your Holy Spirit and send me into the world with the good news of Jesus Christ on my lips. Protect me Father from sin, and shield me from all evil. Make me prosperous for the kingdom in word and deed as I deliver your Word of life, through the gospel of Jesus to a dead and dying world. Give me a heart Father for the souls around me. Let me see each person as you see them, help me to love them even as you loved me before I believed. Help me to see beyond the sin and into the pure soul that the redemption of Christ brings forth. Keep me in this day as I face a world of many vices and temptations. Do not let me be distracted from your love and grace by Satan who would destroy me, and my efforts to love you more. Lift me up Father and in the purity that Jesus has wrought in me give me the power and authority to do your good work. In this day I will serve you with all my heart, and praise you with the fullness of my being, and all that I am. Walk with me Father. Be with me Jesus, and fill me Holy Spirit, as I go forth into the harvest field, and send me not with my own weak words on my lips Father, but with your glorious gift of life for all who hear and believe.
““For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”
John 3:16-18 ESV
Rich Forbes