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Week of February 15, 2010
You Have A Calling
“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations…teaching them to
observe all that I have commanded you…” (Matthew 28: 19, 20)
If all the people who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ took to heart the above verses, how many millions of new believers might there be? Think about how different our country would be if the principles of Jesus’s teachings were not only fixed upon the hearts of our citizens but also put into practice.
Why do professing followers of Jesus have such a hard time putting into practice the command to go and make disciples? This was not a suggestion by our Lord; this was a command! He said, “Go.” The apostle Paul echoed this when he said, “How then can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach if they are not sent?” (Romans 10: 14,15)
Oz Hillman, writing in TGIF (Today God Is First), points out the silliness of only applying the Matthew verses quoted above to specific times and places. To make this point, Hillman creates a parody of Jesus’s teaching on this subject. In his satire, he has Jesus saying, “Dear brothers, it is now time for you to share what you have learned from me. However, as you share with others, be sure that you keep what I taught you separate from your work life. The principles I have shared with you only apply in situations outside your work life. Do not make them fit into this context… Keep this in mind when thinking about praying for the sick or the lost. These truths will not work in the marketplace (your place of work).”
Our Founding Fathers believed that there was an obligation to take religious beliefs into every aspect of one’s life. Thomas Jefferson stated that religion was, “Deemed in other countries incompatible with good government and yet proved by our experience to be its (government’s) best support.” The apostle Paul completes Romans 10: 15 by describing something about those who follow the command to go and make disciples. He says, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” Go and be beautiful! That is your calling!
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George Roller, J.D.
Executive Director, Center for Christian Statesmanship
Based on Sermons written by the late D. James Kennedy
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