Oh yeah? There's a Part 3

One thing Jesus was pretty clear on was missions. If you call yourself a Christian, there is not much wiggle room here. If you are wondering what Jesus really would do (WWJD?), well this is it. Jesus did say, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Matthew 28:18-20). Oh, and he did say, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). There are plenty more so feel free to look them up.

Now with Acts 1:8, I have noticed that we are really good at, and enthusiastic about, the first two parts of that command. We have no problem going, or at least supporting the idea of going to our own towns for Jesus. We like the idea of going, or at least supporting the idea of going to places beyond our own towns for Jesus. We are willing to go to these places, at least when we have time, to serve the people in these places, to pray with them, or at least have someone else pray for them. Heck, we are even willing to "witness " to them, or at least have someone else do that too. But what about part 3 of Acts 1:8? Jesus did say "go... to all nations" and "to the ends of the earth". It is really not very convenient, but he did say it. Oh, we like the idea of going to "all nations" and "to the ends of the earth". We like it very much. Someone should definitely do it so we preach on it. We encourage others to go. We gladly throw in $5 at the car wash fundraiser. And then we rarely think another thing about it.

Pray for our congregation here at Cedarville United Presbyterian. We are trying to do more than throw in $5 at the car wash fundraiser. We are a small congregation, but have a big dream. We are going to Kosovo (former Yugoslavia) from June 30-July 11. We will be working with a Cedarville University group with Muslim orphans from the 1990's war. Our team will be running a day camp for kids. We will be serving them. We will be listening to their stories. We will be trying to learn. We will also be trying to represent Christ and say his words the best we can without bringing him up a whole lot. They kind of frown on that there. We will be visiting a missionary that we support while we are there too. Her name is Beth Cooley. For the team that is going, Kosovo really seems like the ends of the earth. Praise God for that!