Thurs Inspiration

Morning Inspiration with Pastor Merritt

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” (Matthew 28:19)

Every time this verb “go” is used by Matthew, it is always used as a command to get people to physically leave one place and go to another place. A great way to translate this would be to say, “Get moving!” It is not coincidental, but fundamental that the first instruction He gives us is to “go.” That little word makes or breaks any church and makes or breaks any follower of Jesus when it comes to following final instructions.

If you are like me, and many of you are, you grew up going to church. You know what it was like to have probably your mom, say to you every Sunday something like this, “Get up. It is time to go to church.” Technically, my mom was correct in saying that to me, because we had to leave our house in order to go to church. Theologically, that is backwards and most of us have never understood this.

If you are a follower of Jesus Christ your primary responsibility is not to go to church. Your primary responsibility is to come to church, and then leave the church, and go into your community, go into your neighborhood, go into your workplace as a disciple wanting to make disciples. Our job is to come to church and then go from the church and find people who don’t go to church and invite them to come to church with us. That is why we don’t come to church and stay, but we come to church and go. That is why most of us have grown up with this idea that if we just go to church we are done. If we just go to church we are finished. If we just go to church we’ve done what we need to do. You won’t find one time in the Bible where we are ever commanded to go to church. We are to come to church, so we can go from the church, and be the church, for people who don’t even attend church.