The Great Commandment vs. The Great Commission...?

There has been debate, over the years, as to whether the church should focus on the Great Commandment or the Great Commission. I would like to offer my two cents to this long running conversation for consideration.

During His earthly ministry, Jesus said the greatest of His Father's commandments are to love "God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind," and to "love your neighbor like yourself" (Matt 22: 37-40). After His Cross and Resurrection, He commissioned his people- the church- to live out these commandments, by going through out the world making disciples of all nations, baptizing them, and "teaching them to observe all that [He] had commanded them" (Matt 28: 19-20). And after His ascension into heaven, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit, on the day of Pentecost, to empower His church to carry out this mission, to bear the good news of Jesus Christ, the message of His death and resurrection, to a world that is lost in the bondage of sin and death (Acts 1: 8; Acts 2).

So I ask, how can there ever be any separation between the Great Commandment and the Great Commission? One naturally leads to the other and vice versa. How would we know about the first without the latter? And how could we truly live out the latter without the first? The Great Commandment, by the power of the Holy Spirit within us fuels the Great Commission; and the Great Commission, by the grace and mercy of God, gives birth to the faith-filled utterance of the Great Commandment in the hearts, minds, and lives of those who- like we once were before we heard- are once far from God.

Living Witnesses of the Truth

After His resurrection and just before He ascended into heaven, Jesus said to his disciples, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (acts 1:8).

Christians are called to live in this world, not as enforcers for truth-- as some would seem to maintain, but as bold "witnesses" of, and to, the Truth. We have been given "power," in and through the "Holy Spirit," and are called to live lives of forgiveness, love, and grace, always pointing to-- proclaiming in word and deed-- the only Truth that can set man free from the bondage of sin and death, the only Truth that can lay low the strongholds of this fallen and broken world. This Truth is Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man, crucified for the sins of many, raised again to life on the third day as the guarantee of eternal life, Who even now, stands at the righthand hand of God the Father and makes intercession for us!

In the words of the Apostle Paul, "And I... did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God."

Does this mean we are called to passivity and not to action? Certainly not! Throughout the ages, Christian witnesses have seen some of societies most evil institutions undone, before the power of the Cross. It was the Christian witness Telemachus who helped to bring an end to the gladiatorial blood sports of ancient Rome and it was the witness, and activity, of William Wilberforce that helped bring an end to the practice of slavery in the British Empire. Yet even these great triumphs pale in comparison to-- and are contingent upon-- the victory Christ won at Calvary.

So let us endeavor to first surrender every other effort-- no matter how worthy or noble-- to the primacy of His Gospel, allowing our every act, argument, and/or cause, to flow from this fountainhead of grace and mercy. In so doing, we may just find that God Himself, will use our witness to roll away that stone that we in all our might could never budge, just as He did nearly two thousand years ago on that first Easter morning.

In the Beginning, God....

In the beginning, God ever was.... In the now, God ever is... At the end, God ever shall be...!

"For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen." - Romans: 11: 36

Planting for Etrernity

"If you want to grow something to last a season-- plant flowers.
If you want to grow something to last a lifetime-- plant trees.
If you want to grow something to last through eternity-- plant churches." -- Author Unknown

A Worshipful Life

A worshipful life will always be marked by humility. We cannot truly acknowledge God's rightful place, and ascribe to Him the glory and honor due Him, without recognizing and embracing our place.

Restored in Christ

We were created for the paradise of Eden, but now live in the broken wilderness. We were created to walk with our God in the cool of the day, but now run and hide from Him. We were created for life, but all around us we see death. We were created for the stewardship of God's image and this world, but now seek to build our own kingdoms in our own image.... Thanks be to God for His Son, Jesus Christ, Who is all the things we were created to be, yet without sin! In Him-- in His life, death, and resurrection-- the ban of Adam is lifted and we are sealed for paradise; in Him, we may again walk with God; in Him, we have-- not just life-- but life eternal; and in Him, the image of God and the stewardship of His creation is restored to us! There is nothing else in this world that can truly satisfy the longings, the needs, of the human heart other than Jesus Christ. -- Solus Christus

Making Much of God & Much of Others

We are called, as followers of Christ, to make much of God, but in nearly the same breath, we are also called to make much of others. If we find that we can worship our Lord, without much thought for those around us in pain or in need, then something is off kilter. Conversely, if we find ourselves so caught up in the cares of this world, the injustices, and the heartaches, that we begin to miss the story that God is telling, we are likewise off kilter.

The love of God should fuel, and ignite, our love of others. The grace of God, poured out in our sinful lives, through the work of Jesus Christ on the Cross, should spill out of us to impact those around us. And the power and presence of the Holy Spirit within us transforms us and empowers us to live for God as lights in the dark and broken world.

In other [better] words, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matt 22: 37-40).

The Gospel of Jesus Christ sets us free to live out these two great commandments, to love and make much of God and, to truly, love and make much of others.