Jesus' First Great Commission
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First Great Commission
It's really "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." That's Jesus' prayer and it reflected his true mission on earth. To bring down the Kingdom of the Holy God on earth, make it fully operational here, and make heaven a genuine reality on earth. It's a supernatural commission. God's sons and daughters are the ones tasked here (that's why we pray "Our heavenly Father") and should have this mission-vision at heart.
That's Jesus' first great commission. And the second one---making disciples of all nations---should be hinged on or geared to this, and this alone. We are to make disciples who are committed to this mission---Kingdom come and God's will in heaven be done on earth. They should see how it's the Kingdom we're establishing here (not anything else) and should be done just as Jesus did it in the Gospel. This is what our discipleship must be all about. Nothing more.
God's flesh building God's Kingdom. Click here.
All Supernatural
It's all spiritual and supernatural. That's so obvious in Jesus' ministry. If you honestly look at the Gospel, that's all he did. All supernatural. And then he said, "Anyone who has faith in me will do the same things I am doing. And greater things shall he do because I go to the Father" [John 14]. "The same things." Especially now that Jesus is with the Father. In fact, he said we'd do more radical things in the supernatural.
It's useless to do any discipleship that is not focused on Kingdom come and applying God's will in heaven on earth. Discipleship is not a tool for keeping people in church (so they won't transfer to another church) or for increasing local membership. Jesus never did these things. He used discipleship to train select people for Kingdom living and supernatural operations.
In fact, we see in the Gospel how discipleship was used to hone Kingdom principles, priorities, mindsets, systems, protocols, the Kingdom culture, processes, mind patterns, operations and methodology in the disciples. All supernaturally. To me, there's no doubt how it was Jesus' first great commission---to turn believers into Kingdom representatives who will later be given the second great commission---to spread that supernatural Kingdom life and culture worldwide.
It's God's Kingdom we must establish, not men's petty "Christian" empires. These empires are a result of not realizing Jesus' first great commission. Empires build their own kingdoms and call it God's church. In fact, they separately refer to themselves as the body of Christ. They're a confused lot. The true body comprises all true believers worldwide (even those already in heaven), not one single religious empire. Definitely not one single local church. I heard one pastor talk of their local church as "the body." He told his local congregation, "Our local church needs revival as one body of Christ." 😄
Representatives of the Kingdom---we're here to show people what the Kingdom is like. How things work there. We are to pick up where Jesus left off. If somebody's sick, we heal supernaturally. There were doctors in Jesus' time (Luke was a doctor), but we never see Jesus referring the sick to them. He healed them all. Nothing wrong with doctors. But we need to present people with the Kingdom alternative---because we are its representatives. Doctors represent medical science; we represent the Kingdom.
If you're a medical sales rep that represents brand X, you don't recommend brand Y. Brand Y is good, but your job is to recommend brand X because you represent its company, company X. As simple as that. Jesus didn't come to give free medical consultations and medicines to the sick. He showed them the Kingdom system and procedure. Now, he calls us to "do the same things I'm doing, and greater things" shall we do because he is with the Father.
I hope you're getting this.
Jesus' discipleship in Matthew 28 includes "teaching them everything I have taught you." What did he teach? Nothing except the Kingdom. How did he teach it? He taught it through informal discipleship discussions, made actual live demos and lived it in his daily life. You don't see any of these today. Where are the instant healing and miracles and radical daily living? Nowhere. What you see are human theologies and theories and logic and reasoning taught in classrooms or seminars or conferences.
And what you see are acquisition of huge church properties right and left, while Jesus had none of these. Jesus gave up everything and followed the Father to the letter. You see nothing of this today. Jesus said the least is the greatest. Today, nobody wants to be least---everyone wants to be greatest and most popular.
Supernatural miracles? Spiritual gifts? They have wild guesses and theories and opinions that water down rather than promote them and that's what they teach pastors---how to water down or dilute the supernatural, with very strong hints that we're not supposed to take these things seriously today. With this attitude, how can the Kingdom come and the will of the Father in heaven be done on earth?
As it is, church ministries today look exactly like how secular government is run, sometimes with the corruption all intact. Nothing is supernatural. What the church offers is also what the world offers---the world even has better versions of it. The church offers poor imitations. We don't understand that we cannot beat the world in its own game (which is what we insist on doing). We have to do it in the Holy Spirit's realms as Jesus did.
The people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. [Luke 16]We have to understand and believe Jesus' first great commission before we can achieve the second great commission. Otherwise, we just build our own petty empires.
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