Jesus' Great Commission
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It's a glorious plan, bringing down to earth the Kingdom of heaven, so that in these last days heaven shouts saying, "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever." [Revelation 11.15]. Jesus' great commission stated in Matthew 6 (Thy Kingdom come) is the Alpha and Omega of God's present move in these last days.
And this great commission is to be implemented by Jesus' discipleship. Thus, Jesus' great commission is really in two parts---Thy Kingdom come and make disciples. They cannot be separated, as the greatest commandment (love God with your all and love your neighbor as yourself) cannot be separated.
We're to be a Kingdom within a kingdom. God's strategy is like yeast a woman mixed with three measures (60 pounds, says one translation) of dough until the whole thing is "worked through" or "permeated with" yeast. You don't use a large amount of yeast when baking. Just a minuscule part. But it permeates through the dough. It eventually overwhelms the entire thing. The thing becomes it.
The Kingdom of God overwhelming the world in the last days. Click here.
See God's strategy? I hope you do.
It all fits in. Jesus came as a poor carpenter. He chose disciples small-time in the eyes of the world. He chose to be belittled. He emphasized how the least is the greatest. He also likened the Kingdom to a woman (women were seen as "weak" in those days) who mixed yeast to a batch of dough (yeast being used in small amounts).
If you know God, you know he's fond of conquering or demolishing the big and strong with the weak.
But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, [1 Corinthians 1]But the problem with the church is, it wants to look big, great, and popular. It craves to look rich and propertied. Just watch how some pastors allow themselves to be used by politicians to lend the latter an image of cleanness. They ally themselves with the corrupt, which Jesus never did. They like aligning themselves with corrupt power.
And it's funny (and disappointing) when you see how pastors with posh cars and homes are celebrated in church as heroes and models, as people "really blessed by God" and looked up to. I mean, where's "Thy Kingdom come" there? I don't see Jesus or the Beatitudes in any of that. Is that so unique that the world would turn upside down because of it? Peter said we're called to be strangers and aliens in this world.
And just look how wealthy churches with big and facilitated buildings are worshiped and emulated. It seems Jesus goes this direction but the church goes the other direction. We desperately seek the applause and acceptance of the world, which Jesus utterly despised. He warned: "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” In another breath, he declared:
What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight. [Luke 16.15]The church should be guided by this especially now that God is starting to separate the genuine from the fake. You can see which churches are veering toward worldly standards and which stick to Kingdom standards. It's only natural that worldly ways look more successful and glamorous in this world, and Kingdom ways look defeatist. It looked like everything was defeated when Jesus was crucified.
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