GO: THEREFORE GO

THE PRAYER      

• Find a quiet space.      


• Breathe deeply and recognise God with you in this moment.      


• When you are ready, speak to God about this time together.      


• After you've finished praying, go through the following passage a few times slowly and thoughtfully (preferably out loud).    


• Allow God to meet you in these words.

Sing God a brand-new song! Earth and everyone in it, sing! Sing to God, worship God! Shout the news of his victory from sea to sea, Take the news of his glory to the lost, News of his wonders to one and all! Psalm 96: 1-3 (MSG)

THE FIRST READING

Read this passage slowly (preferably out loud) as you allow God to meet you in these words. Pay attention to anything God might be saying as you do.

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising 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 always, to the end of the age." Matthew 28:18-20 (ESV)

RESPONSE

Take some time to respond (write down, draw, pray, etc.) to God’s prompting in the first reading of the passage. What is he highlighting and saying to you through this?

THE SECOND READING

Read the passage again (slowly and preferably out loud) through the “lens” of what The Spirit highlighted in the first reading. Listen for anything else the Spirit might be saying.

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising 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 always, to the end of the age." Matthew 28:18-20 (ESV)

THE REFLECTION

“What should the Christian life actually look like?” 

This is a question I was asked by a searching teenager who had just encountered the goodness of Jesus. Moved by the immense reality of the living God, this young man knew that things simply could not remain as they had been before. I have had many conversations like this. Conversations with people who intuitively know that the Christian life may take on virtually any form except one.

It cannot stay the same.

It may be Matthew the tax collector who leaves everything to follow Jesus, or Zacchaeus the tax collector who gives half of his possessions to the poor and pays back those he has cheated four times what he owes them. Response looks different when “salvation comes to a house” (necessarily so), but response is non-negotiable.

How could it not be?

When we call ourselves Christian, we are claiming to follow the same Jesus who leaves people flat on the floor like dead men at the sight of him. The Jesus who speaks all creation into being. The one to whom all authority in heaven and earth belongs. How could we collide with such glory and leave unchanged?

And yet so many of us do. So many of us embrace a kind of Christianity that simply doesn’t exist in the Bible. It’s a Christianity filled with phrases like “serious Christians,” or “missionaries,” or “full-time ministry" - phrases that describe those “special few” whose lives have been deeply marked by Jesus. I know what we mean by these terms, and in some ways they are unavoidable. However, in using them we’ve created the possibility for “casual Christians,” “non-missionaries,” or “part-time ministers." Our culture may accommodate these distinctions, but I challenge you to find them in the Bible. You won’t. What you will find, time and time again, are two words that sum up the invitation of Jesus to us all.

“Follow me.”

It is in following him, not just believing in him, that we step into the eternal life he came to give us. It is in following him that our souls find the saving they so long for, and for which our Christianity starts to look like our Christ. Following is anything but static because Jesus is anything but static.

He is the “Going God,” who so loved the world that he came. And having come, he went into the streets, into the synagogues, and into the places that others avoided. As we follow this “going God” we should become a “going people." Yes, the Christian life looks like all kinds of things. My going will not look like your going. But, if we truly want to follow Jesus, then like him, we must go. Across the table, across the room, across the street, across the city, across the world.

Jesus is far greater than anything we could imagine. All authority in heaven and earth has been given to him. 

Therefore, we go.