Recently I was pondering about my life and I was reminded about The Great Commission that Jesus had given to his disciples. I remembered Pastor Ben often said in the past that if you were to cut a Hope member, he will bleed Great Commission. That was to show how committed Hope member is to The Great Commission. I am wondering whether this is still true now. Will I "bleed Great Commission"?
As a christian, I want to follow Christ and I want Christ to be my master and head. I want to be a disciple of Christ, someone who will obey his commandments and live out his teachings. So I am tasked to fulfil The Great Commission in my lifetime. What does that mean? I am to make disciple who has close relationship with God. I am to teach him/her everything that Christ had taught. It is not just about sharing gospel, it is about continuous sowing, teaching and nurturing.
We are living in the beginning of the end times. If tribulation were to come tomorrow, can my disciples/flock go through it? Can I go through it? The tribulation mention in the bible sounds extremely terrible. Hanhui describe it(during the last WFL) as a time where we might have to choose between our life or Jesus, our fingers or Jesus, our nails or Jesus etc.
I think it is easy for me to say that I can give up my life for Jesus but when I imagine my fingers, nails, eyes or similar kind of torture that I have to go through for Jesus. Can I really hold on to my faith and belief? Or will I give it up to preserve myself?
During the Prayer meet on last Fri, the first and second prophecy encourages me. I was getting discourage but God wants me to know that nothing is more important than to know the fact that He loves me and nothing is more important to Him than to know I love him. I can be joyful always and not to feel discourage even when I don't see fruit in ministry. And the second prophecy talks about The Great Commission. It is exactly what I have been thinking about. It inspired me to do my best to help my sheep, cg and myself to grow in our convictions about God and his teachings and also about the Great Commission. These are the last words of Jesus before he ascend to Heaven. It must be important.
"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 will be with you always, to the very end of the age. " Matt 28:19-20
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AMEN, AMEN and AMEN.
ReplyDeleteAmen. :) Glad to keep up with you through reading your blog bro. Jia you as we run the race together, we have a real and living God, let's fix our eyes on Him and not our issues, problems, weaknesses, cast off all our restraints because He is our help and an overcomer!
ReplyDeleteBro, thanks for your sharing on our fundamental. A good reminder of what we are actually called to be as children of God. Our ultimate end goal is to build strong and biblical christians who loves God and people wholeheartedly. In order to fulfill this goal, there are many different components involved, planting churches, outreaching, discipleship, etc.
ReplyDeleteSince we are along this line of reflection and thoughts, I have considered some verses and questions in an attempt for all of us to “consider” a larger and more encompassing worldview of God's will for us.
1. How can we as Christians be balanced and move in step with Holy Spirit to fulfill the Great Commission in being urgent but at the same time not being too compulsive and overlook other areas of importance as instructed by the bible? The part of fulfilling the Great Commission in our lifetime - Is it specifically mentioned by the bible or is it advocated by man? There is definitely a difference between desiring to fulfill, willing to fulfill versus “die die” must fulfill in our lifetime.
2. 2 Tim 3:17, Eph 4:12-13 – We as Christians are called to works of service (to do something) so that the body of Christ (church) may be built up until we all reach unity in faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature (essence of discipleship), attaining to the whole measure of fullness of Christ. Essentially, we also have the calling of building the church strongly through discipleship. To me, this shows me a glimpse of how church growth should be like – Not through conversions after conversions of new believers but with no matured Christians to take care of, but with the following:-
i. Effective and efficient system, processes and structure to facilitate containment of growth
ii. Christians with strong character, wisdom and competencies to contain the growth
iii. Wise board strategic direction from leadership to mobilise everyone to serve together
In essence, the church delivered “great performance” in fulfillment of its mission, making deep and heartfelt impacts in changing lives of people and finally one that is “enduring and sustainable” in a long run. Our present church leadership will not be there all the time. Fulfilling the Great Commission means continuity – when the present leaders are gone, there are replacements from people on the ground. Some questions I asked aloud – Who are the new and uprising leaders nowadays in church, district, sub-district, unit and CG? Are they really competent as compared to the old guards? How long on the average does it takes to develop a leader? Given that our church size is about 4000 in congregational size, how many pastors, DLs, SDLs, Uls, CLs are needed for optimal functioning? How many actual leaders do we have now and what is the gap? What are we doing now to plug this gap? Are the leaders and members aware of such gaps? Are there any attempts to help all of us to see the actual gaps?
3. The bible also mentions specifically of:-
i. Jer 29:11, 1 Cor 12, Eph 4 - Specific plans for individual with different giftings and talents to serve differently
ii. Matt 25:14-30, Luke 19:11-27 - The concept of stewardship; The need for us to be faithful to ultilise our talents, giftings which God will call us to be accountable for. How does such different giftings play a part in Great Commission?
iii. Matt 13:8, 23 – Concept of different aptitude given by God (Some bear fruits of thirty, sixty or hundred folds)
From i, ii, and iii, from the interaction of all these factors, how would the picture of a strong and biblical church who is in God’s be like? Does this picture comes naturally or it is achieved through cautious, meticulous, disciplined, and prayerfully planning and following of God’s leading? What’s the balance between responsibility of leaders in chartering directions of growth VS initiatives by members to meet certain gaps in human needs? How should church leadership lead church growth in such a way to facilitate such unity in diversity of service to meet different needs? What are the critical areas confronting us as a church now for us to continue to move towards a glorious church?
Further thoughts that I have yet to pen down in details include “Understanding what is meant by Kingdom of God and for us to expand the Kingdom of God”. I welcome further thoughts and inputs to this comment.
So far I have not received any comment or contribution in understanding God's holistic will and purpose for Christians. Anyway I have added an article from Pastor Rick Warren in my blog which added wider perspectives and flavours. Enjoy!
ReplyDeletehttp://just-thinking-passion-for-life.blogspot.com/