Your heart and feet matters!

 

As Christians, our thinking is the world we live is deteriorating in terms of culture, ethics, morality and basic humanness. We expect God should do something about it in order to make things better so that our living is more comfortable. In this connection the response of the Churches and Christians are varied, ambiguous and at times erroneous too. There is a large group that uses “Fortress approach” as their focal approach, where the world is viewed as being bad and evil and suggests that one should by all means protect oneself from it. People hardly relate with the people outside the Church. The other daunting challenge is that majority of Christendom believe that their responsibility ends with prayer. Therefore, they settle with prayers organized by Churches/favorite organizers and give some offerings to Churches and Christian organizations as and when it is required.

When it comes to influencing the nations with the Gospel and healing the nations, Jesus adopted a strategy. It comprises of choosing people, allowing them to observe Him demonstrate the Gospel and send them out to preach the Gospel. This was done in order to restore the brokenness of the people and influence the entire humanity. But unfortunately today, this is not the model most Churches and Christian organizations are following. The new converts who make it to Churches are ensured they stay with them forever, become faithful in their giving and adding number to the crowd either for credibility or for the sustenance of the Church in most cases. The Churches want them to grow in the Lord all their life without equipping them to go or sensitizing the congregation and warning them about the failure to obey Christ's Mandate. This is an alarming and a serious matter.

All their life people are taught that God watches the heart only, but fail to teach them God is interested in their feet too. Paul Rightly points the prophecy in Romans 10:9 “…How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news.”. The outcome of the commitment one makes to Christ is the effective usage of his/her feet in carrying the Gospel to the dying world. The success of the ministry is unfortunately determined by the number of activities conducted, big budgets utilized and a big number that made it as participants. God is interested to see you going out as a carrier of His good news than to be like the lazy servant who preserved his one talent and did nothing about it (Matthew 25:24-25). Many are thinking they are preserving themselves for Christ, without being useful nor being part of Christ's mission. Some leaders misunderstand and hold on to what Paul said in Colossians, that his goal is to present each one holy faultless and blameless before God (Colossians1:22), which was one of the many goals Paul had and stick to it only.

Paul’s other goal was to preach good news where Christ is not named (Romans 15:20), to remember the poor and meet the needs of them (Galatians 2:10), to gladly spend and be spent for people (2 Corinthians 12:15), to be poured as drink offering (Philippians 2:17). The purpose of every Christians is not only to be pure and blameless but to attract others to Christ with the Gospel.

So, what is God’s direction? If humans are the focus of God’s redemptive work, we might find ourselves asking, “how does God move to restore humanity?  There are two possibilities as we consider the direction in which God moves to restore us humans as narrated by J. Warner 1. Inside – Out movement (“Evangelical Gospel”). People are inherently fallen and our own personal sinfulness must be addressed before the larger society can be impacted. 2. Outside -In movement (“Social Gospel”). People are basically good but are corrupted by the fallen society. The ills of the society be addressed before individual can be impacted. 

The second approach simply doesn’t work when it comes to impacting the transformation of lives. It has to be the first approach and we need every follower of Christ in his/her sphere of influence to present Christ correctly in response to the great Commission.

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The sending of "12" & "72"! - Part 2

In my previous BLOG the sending of ‘12’ and the ‘72’ I had emphasized on Christ's mission and mandate. As I continue to explore a bit more in this blog, I want to reemphasize on His mandate and throw additional light on discipling and sending, which the Bible underscores. Before we can explore a little more, let me quote the Great Commission from Mark 16:15-17 which reads like this, then He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes; if they should drink anything deadly, it will not harm them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will get well.”

It is sad to see today that to a larger extent people have diluted the Great Commission and customized it to their convenience. If you read the Great Commission carefully, it starts by saying “go to the world and preach the gospel”, and all the signs will accompany those who believe. Today in order to sustain popularity, signs, wonders and healing are the ones over emphasized. This has resulted in deteriorating of the Gospel. The second part of the Great Commission looks promising for many, which grabs all the attention.

Let me quote an incident in the Bible where Jesus was in a house and the crowd was thronging the place. A paralytic man was brought in by his four friends, was lowered in the house by dismantling the roof. The Bible records,  when Jesus saw him He addressed the core issue, the sin problem saying, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”. Jesus while starting His ministry echoed the message John preached in Mat 3:2, “Repent because the kingdom of heaven has come near” in Matthew 4:17. No doubt He did many miracles but the emphasis of the Gospel and the kingdom of God was never once left out. His encounter with people always empowered the person to be a disciple and a witness.

Let us understand the sending of His 12 disciples and also the sending of the bigger group of 72 people. In Mathew 10 we find Jesus empowering His disciples who were part of His core team with the gift of healing and power to drive out demons, but the important part of the story is that He chose them to send so that they can continue the mission that He was soon preparing to entrust them. If you notice verse 7 and 8, Jesus commissioned them to go and proclaim about the kingdom of God and then heal the sick and perform signs where it is necessary. The leadership team; His disciples were not meant to stay and enjoy the goodness for themselves exclusively. Being with Him was the primary goal but it was accompanied by going out (Mark 3:14).

And then in Luke 10, Jesus appoints the 72 (bigger group) and sends them too in pairs and to every town and places where He Himself was about to go (Luke 10:1). Jesus defined the problem statement when He sent the larger group. The harvest is abundant (Luke 10:2) and they may have to encounter wolves in sheep clothing (Luke 10:3), which says they had the responsibility to tear the deception of the people who wore a form of godliness.

Today, all are interested to gather people to their flock and ensure not one is missing. But is the Church seriously following Jesus' model by equipping the small circle (leadership team) and as well as the bigger circle of 72 (Congregation) to go out and share the gospel? Jesus included, rather added, people to send and He did so by sending them to towns and villages. Today, it is easy. You don’t have to look for a mission field because your very work place and community is filled with Non-Christians, which becomes a mission field. Every individual of your church becomes a Church (1 Cor 3:16) who has ample of space to accommodate new people who needs Christ. Are you prepared to send the “12’s and the 72’s?

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