Hearing His Call

Feature 2 – January 2014 — Grace & Truth Magazine

THE GREAT COMMISSION
Hearing His Call And Heeding His Command

In our day when many lives are perishing through crime and violence, there is a great push for self-defense through the ownership and use of guns and other weapons. But I believe that the need of the hour is for self-deliverance through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore it is important and urgent for us to reach the world, preaching “the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16 NKJV ).

Here are four reasons that I have found as to why we should present our living Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to a dying world:

1. There is a command by our risen Lord Jesus from above.
Those of us who have heard the call of Christ to come unto Him (Mt. 11:28), should heed His command to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mk. 16:15). It is not for us to bring the world to Christ, but to take Christ to the world. Believers may well ask, “How should we go into the world, and not with the world?”

• We should go into the world with His power. “Then Jesus came and spoke to them saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth’” (Mt. 28:18). He has divine power to release any person, in any place, at any period (Acts 3:1-11, 12:1-11, 16:16-34).

• We should go into the world with His program. “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 things that I have commanded you” (Mt. 28:19-20). We must depend on the Holy Spirit to work through us in sharing the gospel that will lead to people believing in Christ, belonging to Christ and behaving like Christ.

• We should go into the world with the confidence of His presence with us. “And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Mt. 28:20). His presence is not something we endure, but it is something we enjoy moment by moment. The gospel of Matthew opens with the promise of Immanuel, which is translated “God with us” (Mt. 1:23). Matthew 18:20 reveals that presence in the context of worship, but here it is the divine presence in the context of witness.

2. There is the cry from below.
“Then [the rich man] said, ‘I beg you therefore, father, that you would send [Lazarus] to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment’” (Lk. 16:27-28). This is a family with one in hell and five others, although still alive, on their way to that place of torment. Oh that we might hear the cries of perishing souls requesting us to tell others of the Savior of sinners, our Lord Jesus Christ!

3. There is a call from without.
“And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, Come over to Macedonia and help us” (Acts 16:9). In response to that call, Paul and Silas were channels through which God worked in saving a man from suicide (Acts 16:25-31).

4. There is the constraining love of Christ.
“For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again” (2 Cor. 5:14-15).

May we in love respond to His command to go and tell others about Him – the only Savior of sinners.

By Emmanuel V. John