The Great Commission.16

When you are confronted 

by the world's hatred, 

remember how it hated me
 before your time. 

And when they persecute you in one place,
move on to the next. 

You will not have reached 

all the peoples of the world 

before the Messiah returns. 

If a city refuses to accept you, 

or heed your message, 

shake the dust of that city 

from your feet 

as you depart. 

In the  final day of judgment, 

it will have been better to be 

from the land of 

Sodom and Gomorrah 

than from such a place.

--Jesus

We have all, from birth on-wards, encountered hatred in one form or another ranging from mild annoyance to seething resentment to physical violence.  But the hatred Jesus warns of here is that unaccountable form that speaks to the nature or kind of hatred.  "Remember how it hated me..." is the lesson Jesus must teach us.

The root of all sin is rebellion to the Father.  It is antagonism--to His will, His ways, His righteousness, His Truth, His love--that energizes evil deeds and is best described by the Psalmist:

Why are the nations so angry?
Why do they waste their time with futile plans?
The kings of the earth prepare for battle;
the rulers plot together against the LORD
and against his anointed one.
"Let us break their chains," they cry,
"and free ourselves from slavery to God."

"The slaves of sin rarely grumble at that slavery; it is their slavery to God they grumble at; of that alone they complain-of the painful messengers he sends to deliver them from their slavery both to sin and to himself.

They must be sons or slaves.

They cannot rid themselves of their owner. Whether they deny God, or mock him by acknowledging and not heeding him, or treat him as an arbitrary, formal monarch...taking no trouble to find out what pleases him...they are slaves, and not the less slaves that they are slaves to God; they are so thoroughly slaves, that they do not care to get out of their slavery by becoming sons and daughters, by finding the good of life where alone it can or could lie.---MacDonald, Freedom, Unspoken Sermons III

As a potent witness to the message of the Master--of repentance leading to the putting away of sin and running in childlike wonder to the arms of the Father--we must understand the nature of the hatred we encounter from the world and neither be fearfully paralyzed nor intimidated to silence by it.  How difficult to grasp that the message of love, repentance and freedom, of good deeds done in compassion and kindness would generate such hostility.

Remember the cross and keep moving!

The Great Commission.15

"Truly, it is a fire that I have come to bring upon the earth. How I long to see it ablaze! Did you imagine that I had come to bring peace and tranquility?  No, I tell you, I have come to spread division! From now on, there will be five in one house, divided as to what they should believe, three against two, and two against three."

--Jesus

"For Richard was now but too well convinced that he had no power of persuasion equal to the task of making Dorothy see things as he saw them.  The dividing influence of imperfect opposing goods is potent as that of warring good and evil, with this important difference, that the former is but for a season, and will one day bind as strongly as it parted, while the latter is essential, absolute, impassible, eternal." --MacDonald, from St. George and St. Michael.

Sadly, mine is a divided house.  One son coaches wrestling for Central Michigan University; two sons wrestle for Michigan State University.  Normally it's not much of an issue...until the two teams compete against each other.  Normally CMU wins and the trash talking ensues.  Normally, love of wrestling heals all wounds...

Sadly, the USA is a divided house.  But it is not divided over a favorite sports team.  It is divided over what we should believe.  Many of us believe, rightly in my opinion, that it is a "warring between good and evil", rather than opinion over "imperfect opposing goods."  Whether it is economic issues such as private property vs redistribution, or social issues such as "pro-choice" vs "pro-life"; it is imperative to the health of the nation that we are able to see the debate for what it really is and know if we still have the capacity to distinguish good from evil.

The point here is not to rehash why one view is better than the other, but that there must be a point when the fires blaze!  Jesus was not advocating anarchy, but purity of conviction which leads to the rule of righteousness.  We have long debated whether Abraham Lincoln was a hero or tyrant.  What we cannot debate is that the eradication of slavery was a costly victory that only came as the fire of passions blazed!  The only question that remains: are we a better nation because we paid the price?  Is the world a better place because the people of the United States of America were willing to pay that price and make a statement against an evil practice that was old as human society?

This question still remains: do we have the courage of our convictions even today?  Will the evil of tyranny & despotism finally be eradicated in the world by the fire of conviction and the will to righteousness beginning here in the land of the free?  Are we still the home of the brave...or, as Mark Twain observed, ‘the average man’s a coward...’  

May the guiding hand of Divine Providence help us answer that question even as Jesus proclaimed to every generation of mankind: ‘how I long to see it ablaze!’ May the love of good and hatred of evil inspire us to be men of courage to this generation!  

The world will be a better place for it.

The Great Commission.14

If I had not come 
with the message of truth,
   the inhabitants of the world 
would not have been 
aware of their failings 
and wrong behavior. 

No longer can they hide behind their former ignorance of the truth. 

If I had not 
performed miracles among them, 
   they would not have known 
that the kingdom had come 
to dwell among them. 

Now those who have rejected the truth
 have also been witness to the miracles, 
   and hate both me and my Father. 

This is come to pass, that the prophecy might be fulfilled: 

"They have hated me without cause."
--Jesus

What is harder to imagine:  
the majestic grandeur of heaven 
-or-
 a world where Jesus 
'had not come?'

What better occupation for the Son of God than carpenter to build an understanding of all that is True into the fabric of social relations!

For what is True?  In carpentry it is the intersection of complex influences on the senses: perspective, level, plum, geometry, equilibrium, optics, and gravity.  However complicated these intertwining concepts there is a simple tool to measure True - a carpenter's level.

Jesus is the Level of Truth.  By Him mankind was given the gift of True; the way to measure all the convoluting influences on right behavior.  By pointing all things to our Creator Father we can understand better ourselves.  He taught us that it is in the doing of truth that we only understand the truth of a thing.

"Ask a man of mere science, what is the truth of a flower: he will pull it to pieces, show you its parts, explain how they operate, how they minister each to the life of the flower; he will tell you what changes are wrought in it by scientific cultivation; where it lives originally, where it can live; the effects upon it of another climate; what part the insects bear in its varieties-and doubtless many more facts about it. Ask the poet what is the truth of the flower, and he will answer: 'Why, the flower itself, the perfect flower, and what it cannot help saying to him who has ears to hear it.' The truth of the flower is, not the facts about it, be they correct as ideal science itself, but the shining, glowing, gladdening, patient thing throned on its stalk-the compeller of smile and tear from child and prophet.
The truth of a thing, then, is the blossom of it, the thing it is made for, the topmost stone set on with rejoicing; truth in a man's imagination is the power to recognize this truth of a thing; and wherever, in anything that God has made, in the glory of it, be it sky or flower or human face, we see the glory of God, there a true imagination is beholding a truth of God.

Man is man only in the doing of the truth, perfect man only in the doing of the highest truth, which is the fulfilling of his relations to his origin. 
But he has relations with his fellow man, closer infinitely than with any of the things around him, and to many a man far plainer than his relations with God. Now the nearer is plainer that he may step on it, and rise to the higher, till then the less plain. 
These relations make a large part of his being, are essential to his very existence, and spring from the very facts of the origination of his being. They are the relation of 

• thought to thought, 

• of being to being, 

• of duty to duty. 

The very nature of a man depends upon or is one with these relations. They are truths, and the man is a true man as he fulfills them. Fulfilling them perfectly, he is himself a truth, a living truth. As regarded merely by the intellect, these relations are facts of man's nature; but that they are of man's nature makes them truths, and the fulfillments of them are duties. 
He is so constituted as to understand them at first more than he can love them, with the resulting advantage of having thereby the opportunity of choosing them purely because they are true; so doing he chooses to love them, and is enabled to love them in the doing, which alone can truly reveal them to him, and make the loving of them possible. 
Then they cease to show themselves in the form of duties, and appear as they more truly are, absolute truths, essential realities, eternal delights. The man is a true man who chooses duty; he is a perfect man who at length never thinks of duty, who forgets the name of it. 
The duty of Jesus was the doing in lower forms than the perfect that which he loved perfectly, and did perfectly in the highest forms also. Thus he fulfilled all righteousness. One who went to the truth by mere impulse, would be a holy animal, not a true man. Relations, truths, duties, are shown to the man away beyond him, that he may choose them, and be a child of God, choosing righteousness like him. Hence the whole sad victorious human tale, and the glory to be revealed!"  --George MacDonald, The Truth

Thus it is essential to our being to obey Jesus who leads us always to Truth!

The Great Commission.13

"Remember that in the earthly kingdom no servant is greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you, punishing you for my cause, not realizing Who it was that sent me into the world. If, however, they accept and follow my message, they will accept and follow yours as well."

--Jesus

Hast thou no scar?
No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand?
I hear thee sung as mighty in the land,
I hear them hail thy bright ascendant star,
Hast thou no scar?

Hast thou no wound?
Yet, I was wounded by the archers, spent.
Leaned me against the tree to die, and rent
By ravening beasts that compassed me,I swooned:

Hast thou no wound?

No wound? No scar?
Yet as the Master shall the servant be,
And pierced are the feet that follow Me;
But thine are whole.

Can he have followed far
Who has no wound nor scar?

--Amy Carmichael 

How about we not just pray for the persecuted church.  How about we be the persecuted church that like its Master lives a life so selfless, compassionate and giving we can't be overlooked by "Brutalism's political empire."  How about we remember why we choose not to live under the radar of radical righteousness: there are those who will accept His message!

The Great Commission.12

"If you are accused and brought to court, 
do not fear at your lack of words. 
They will be given to you in that instant.
You need not rely on your words alone, 
for the breath of God will speak through you."

--Jesus

What scares you more:

• being accused of following Jesus

-OR-

• lack of evidence that you ARE a follower of Jesus?

The greatest evidence that we are a follower of Jesus is that we rely on the Breath of God to invigorate our speech...everyday!

The Great Commission.11

"Be warned: there will be those who will attempt to silence your witness of me. You will be summoned to court, and dealt with unfairly, and imprisoned on behalf of me. Because of my words, you will be asked to testify before those who do not believe, before rulers, governors, and kings."

--Jesus

Warned

   Follower of Jesus do you consider your witness of the Master a thing so potent that you must be a target of aggression?  Better yet, is not this a good measure of our witness?  If we are feeble and barely make a ripple on the waters of the conscience of those around us, should we not be more alarmed at that then the possibility of persecution for a bold and steady call to repentance?  Recall the scene in "Saving Private Ryan" when Corporal Upham sat paralyzed in fear heedless of the dying cries of his comrade in the room next to him.  Having completed his death match, the Nazi walked on past with sneering disregard for the miserable mass of cowardice sniveling on the steps. 

Silenced

    The silence is deafening as the world casts a deaf ear to the influence of Christianity -- from removing prayer in schools, to Roe v Wade, to the sterile world of leftism's love affair with science and reason marginalizing people of faith.
    

Summoned
By definition a summons is to call or notify to appear at a specified place, especially before a court.  It is usually followed by apprehension, dread or fear by the summoned.  But as Jesus' followers it ought to be seen as our commission by the One who chooses and strategically appoints us to our tasks for the Kingdom.  In my day job I have been chosen to train new field reps.  I recently was "summoned" to go on a training mission.  Not only did I represent my company but also my King as the rep and I had memorable conversations about the perfecting love of God in Jesus.

    

Dealt With Unfairly

   If we ever need to be reminded that we are not yet in the Kingdom whose King is love, it is only to have to deal with this world's system.  Daily we are reminded by news stories that this world is not our home and we ought to carefully guard our hearts from expecting true justice and "fairness" in our dealings.

Imprisoned

    I had dream that I went to prison for opting out of social security for my work as a pastor.  I was greatly troubled by the dream.  Not for going to prison as much as the reason.  The founder's of our faith, the apostles, considered it a privilege to suffer for the King.  But they also warned that our persecution should rest on righteousness not bumbling badness.

Testify
    If we are the followers of God's Logos and trust Him daily to teach us the meaning of His words by living in obedience to his great heart, then surely we can trust him to give us His words, full of His meaning, at the right time!  Notice the progression:

• those who don't believe
• rulers
• governors
• Kings

What a thrill that His words--lived out in our lives--are so full of potency that we must give an account to and potentially change the hearts of people in power who, themselves, will one day give an account to the King of Kings!

The Great Commission.10

"Do not hesitate to accept hospitality, yet remain purposeful. Resist aimless wandering. Enjoy whatever food and drink is offered you, for the person who labors is worthy of just wages.

Those who accept you, accept me also, and they that accept me welcome also the Father who has sent me."

---Jesus

Remain Purposeful.

Have you been on a mission trip at anytime in your Christian experience?  Remember the excitement of being prayed over and the sense of really "doing something for Jesus?" 

Most of us who've grown up in the church have been brought up on a steady diet of spiritual dualism, the notion that there are certain activities that are more important to God like "bible studies" and career choices, like "missionary", than the mundane endeavors we find ourselves in and wonder if He cares much about.  After all did not Jesus call Peter and the boys from the tediousness of fishing to a far more glorious work of "fishing" for men?

Aware of this tendency in the holy huddle of the Christian community, as a pastor I tried to avoid this dualism by celebrating "secular" accomplishments in school, work or home-life by focusing on the evidence of  God's pleasure and power in those things as well..  But the real challenge is to instill in every follower of Jesus to "remain purposeful" in all the activities of life by living with an awareness that He is always leading us triumphantly to overcome sin in our own lives and helping others in their struggles as well.

Resist Aimless Wandering.

In my "secular" work of sales I catch myself "aimlessly wandering" from time to time.  Although I try to start each day with a plan I am aware that a set back, a broken promise, a rejection, or geographical lost-ness can throw me off target.  Even a significant success can lull me into a sense of self-satisfaction that slows my mission.

As a follower of Jesus we do, indeed, live with a sort of dualism in that we have confidence that whatever the work we are doing, when we are doing it with a whole heart for his glory and excellence, brings Him pleasure.  And confidence that along the journey there are precious moments of ministry when we surely are His eyes, ears, hands and mouth to bring blessing to those he's led us to.

Not infrequently do I have those moments as I do my work.  One favorite moment was while talking to a lady about our organization, she seemed distant and distracted.  She apologized and told me she'd just found out that her married son and father of her three grandchildren had just learned he had cancer.  Her own battle with cancer gave her hope that it could be won, but not without great pain and sacrifice.  I asked her if we could pray together.  As we bowed our heads, Jesus surely showed up to minister to that lady!

Worthy of Wages

If we love God and his Son, Jesus, with all our heart, soul and strength.  If we demonstrate that love by loving others with all our heart, soul and strength.  Then we taste the reward in small portions of his joy in precious moments of ministry like that.  No matter what the sum in the wage box shows on our check...we know we have a down payment on eternal joy waiting in oneness with Him!