There are times that we think only those who have been given specific spiritual gifts are given the task to witness. That is not the case. This daily devotion looks at Jesus’ commission to His disciples.
Witnessing can be hard. Witnessing means we tell non-believers that Jesus can be their personal Savior.
It being hard is why we get to leave it to those with the right spiritual gifts, correct? “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,” (Eph. 4: 11-12 ESV). Jesus didn’t equip everyone to be an evangelist, pastor, or teacher, right?
Right and wrong. No, we don’t all have the gift to be able to get in front of a group of people and tell about the Good News of Jesus.
Yes, we all are to be witnesses. “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (II Cor. 5: 20 ESV). An ambassador is a resident representative.
Don’t you love that definition? It is so appropriate. We are residents here on this earth who are sent by Sovereign God. Look. It doesn’t say they, but we.
God will make His appeal to seekers through all of us.
Because we are all commissioned to be witnesses, we should examine the Great Commission and see what instructions Jesus left for us.
Look at the action verbs in these verses: go, make, baptize, and teach.
Go
"Then Jesus came to them and said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age'" (Mt. 28: 18-20 NIV)
When Jesus said go, it means that it is somewhere other than here. Sometimes, we have to go to another country, another state, or another street. Sometimes, we just need to go to another room or another desk. Sometimes, we just have to go out of our comfort zones.
A lot of verbs in the Bible can be a past, present and future participle all rolled up in one. This one would be “went,” “go,” and “as you are going.”
Think about Jesus. He moved around a lot. He didn’t just teach people in the synagogues. He taught by the seashore, by the roadside — wherever He was.
Jesus wasn’t just a weekend warrior. He continually moved. It wasn’t just a one-time shot but a continuous undertaking.
Jesus expects the same from us. We need to be purposeful in our witnessing. We need to look for opportunities to share God’s love with people seeking what is missing in their lives.
Wherever God is leading us, we have to take to our feet and move. We need to purposefully decrease the distance between us and seekers.
Yes, God can put someone in our paths that is searching. That could happen as we are going about our daily business.
But how are seekers going to know they can ask us about God? Is this like NASCAR where we have our sponsors on our fire suits?
We are probably going to have to start the conversation about God’s love for them.
Make
Some versions say teach here also, but we’re going to look at make as in “make disciples.” That implies a change.
We aren’t just going to seekers to make them feel better and tell them to keep doing what they have been doing. They weren’t disciples before, but after they’ve followed Jesus’ directions, a change will occur, and they will be disciples.
We need to build a relationship with people as well to nurture their relationship with God as they navigate that change. That takes time, patience, love, and understanding. It takes a commitment.
Seekers are probably going to have a lot of questions. We should be ready to mentor them. We should be ready to use our experiences to help them understand things.
That means building the relationship into a trusting relationship. New believers have to be comfortable sharing with us things that are difficult for them.
That works both ways, but ooo, baby. We generally say anything but that!
Yes, it will take us out of our comfort zones. We may have to share some things we rather wouldn’t. We have to let God use us in the ways that are needed.
Baptize
Seekers show this change by asking to be baptized. Baptism is the symbol of our conversion experience, providing the physical evidence that we have died and been buried to sin and have risen in a new spiritual life with Jesus.
They can’t do this by themselves. This is a two-person job.
Now, we aren’t like Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch (Ac. 8: 26-40). We are not normally the ones to do the actual dunking. But we can keep encouraging them until they have followed through with baptism.
Teach
We can’t just dunk them and drop them. We’ve got to continue to teach them.
I see this as different from the mentoring process of making disciples. Where there we were a trusted adviser, here we are the person designing the curriculum. We see gaps in their knowledge that we strive to fill.
Salvation isn’t the end result but rather a milestone on the journey.
Salvation is the gift of life through the deliverance from condemnation and sin to acceptance and holiness and changes us from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive.
- Sin is not believing that Jesus is our Savior to save us from our actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
- Pure means not being sinful or having the stain of sin.
- Virtues are standards of moral excellence.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Holiness is the transcendent excellence of His nature that includes elements of purity, dedication, and commitment that lead to being set apart.
- Purity means possessing God’s moral character, having eliminated the stain of sin.
- Spiritual death is the spiritual separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
- The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Glossary
People aren’t going to magically understand everything. We won’t understand everything until we get to heaven.
Witnessing isn’t just tell the stories and run. We need to be available to support new disciples.
Heavenly Father. We call these verses the Great Commission. We see it as our game plan as to help win people to You. We acknowledge that we cannot force people to turn to You. Our mission is to go to them, tell them, and then teach them as they change to begin a relationship with You. We are called to support them. We know that this is what You would have us do because in this You will be with us always. It won’t be us; it will be You. Amen.
What do you think?
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Elaine your knowledge of the Bible is inspiring. I love your daily devotions. I may not get them read everyday but I always catch up eventually. Thank you. All make me pause and think some more than others and this was a necessary soul searcher.
Linda, It is very difficult to keep up on a daily basis. The main thing is that we seek God however we can. I know the devotions are going to touch someone all the time — hopefully, those touch someone else. Thinking on Him is good.
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