By Ryan Shaw
Over the last few posts we have been focusing much on the end goal of The Fulfillment of the Great Commission in This Generation! Seeing a powerful “witness” provided to the 6,000 unreached people groups and 533 unengaged groups.
This is good and right. However, we must also face the primary factor hindering this process if we are going to be motivated forward rightly.
A critical emphasis must be made on how to arouse the Church, the body of Jesus Christ, around the world, to know and do the Father’s will in relation to the Great Commission.
To accomplish this glorious vision of The Fulfillment of the Great Commission in This Generation God has called His body to partner with Him. He will not do it by Himself. He has set up His Kingdom so that all that is done for the Kingdom is through divine partnership with the advancing Church.
Only spiritual people are able to carry out this spiritual command of Jesus. This requires, then, that the Church is seeking the deepest and highest levels of spiritual life possible.
An important question becomes how can we lead individual local churches and campus ministries to make themselves available to Jesus for the global work He has destined for her?
The low understanding and spiritual zeal to obey this command of Jesus correlates with the low spiritual life of the Church. The great lack of praying, giving, advocating, promoting, sending and going ourselves reveals a significant need – (1) the need for a great revival of spiritual life, (2) of true and fervent devotion to Jesus and of (3) entire surrender to serving Him.
It is the neglect of Jesus’ command in the Great Commission, based on the lack of the above three realities in Christ’s Church, that is the hindering factor in its fulfillment.
The most important emphasis in seeing The Fulfillment of the Great Commission in This Generation is not merely focusing on the needs of the world, but in helping revive the spiritual life of local churches and campus fellowships in order that spiritual fervor for cross-cultural mission may follow.
To see the command of the Great Commission given its rightful place we make a definite surrender to be filled with the Holy Spirit and the love of Jesus Christ. We cultivate daily abandoned devotion to Jesus Christ, crowning Him Lord and King over every area of life.
This abandoned devotion to Jesus is essential. It is the fountain from which springs growing love, surrender to Christ and His purpose, faith in His abiding power and a desire to see His followers giving their lives to make Jesus King over all unreached and unengaged people groups.
Pastors, pastoral teams, mission pastors and staff of campus ministry organizations hold the privilege and responsibility of helping solve the hindering factors of the Great Commission.
Though these themselves may not be called as message bearers (alternative term for missionary), they are called to lead their fellowships into the full fledged recognition that the Church exists for the purpose of extending Christ’s Kingdom where it currently is not.
This global mandate must hold the heart of every spiritual leader if they are to rightly reflect the will and purpose of Jesus Christ. They are the ones through whom this grand vision must shine forth among their ministry.
Local churches and campus fellowships help solve the problem before us in the Great Commission through providing cross-cultural mission information to their people. Information is the fuel without which the fire cannot burn.
This cannot be overstated. We want to obtain and circulate as much mission information (books, magazines, DVD’s, websites, etc) as possible. A local church or campus fellowship that is informed about cross-cultural mission will be a transformed ministry.
How can we be educated, inspired and activated without information? Current ignorance about the status of the fulfillment of the Great Commission is a great stumbling block and weakness among the body of Christ.
Ministries and believers with information at their disposal possess stronger faith, commitment to prayer and capacity to be purposefully engaged in cross-cultural mission.
