Goals: To Obey

In the first post of this blog, I mentioned that there were seven goals I had for starting this "Good News for Calgary" blog:

• To Obey
• To Pray
• To Learn
  
• To Teach
• To Model
• To Report
  
• To Encourage

I want to spend a few moments reflecting on the first goal:  to obey.  Simply to obey.  

The Lord Jesus commissioned his disciples to make disciples by going, baptizing, & teaching.  The classic text is Matthew 28:18-20. 

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  And behold, I am with you alwasy, to the end of the age" (ESV).  

We are explicitly commanded by our Lord to "go."  Disciples make disciples by going, by doing something.    

Just before His resurrection, He told his disciples,   

"But 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."

I have had the privilege of talking to people about the Lord Jesus Christ since I became a Christian at age 16.  Some have been hardened, some have been apathetic, and some have been receptive.  I've had the privilege of ministering in a number of different settings and in 3 different countries, yet I can do far more.  The older I get (hitting the top of the hill this year!), the more pressing this seems to me.   

Jack Dennison says in his book, City Reaching,

"Evidence suggests that 95 percent of all Christians in North America will not lead a single person to Christ in their entire lifetime."

In his book, The One Thing You Can't Do In Heaven, Mark Cahill references a Zondervan Church Source that says

"...97 percent of church members have no involvement in any sort of evangelism." 

He goes on to say,

"A survey by Christianity Today found that only 1 percent of their readership had witnessed to someone recently.  Does anything strike you as being wrong with this picture...?"

Clearly, it is the duty & responsibility (& should be the joy) of every believer to witness for His Lord.  There are many ways to do this from the evangelist who goes out intentionally speaking to folks about the Gospel to the average Christian who provides answers to those within his or her sphere of influence for the hope that is within them.

Yet so many Christians have no intentions whatsoever of speaking about Christ.  I know many pastors who don't ever talk to anyone outside the four walls of their own church about the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Apostle Paul wrote to his friend, Philemon, in a short little letter in the New Testament.  One of the things he said was,

"I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ" (NIV).

That is my prayer for myself and for others, and this blog hopefully, will keep me focused on the task at hand.  So the first goal of this blog is to obey the Lord Jesus Christ, and to hold myself accountable in proclaiming the Gospel to Calgary.  Not every conversation will be recorded here, but I hope to write about a lot of them, and so spur on my fellow Christians in their own obedience to the great task that God has given to us.