The
Lord’s
church has been given a work to do. That work is to evangelize the
world. Jesus
commanded the apostles to go into all the world and preach the Gospel
to every
creature (Mark 16:15-16). The Gospel is the good news that Jesus died
on the
cross for the sins of the world, that He was buried and that He was
resurrected
from the grave, so that man might be saved and have the hope of eternal
life.
Christ said that it was the facts of that
Gospel—the facts of
that good news—that were to be taken to all the world. He
also said that the commands
of the Gospel were to be preached and obeyed
if man was to be
saved.
Individual
Christians exist in a city or village, and throughout the world,
wherever the Gospel
has been preached and there are those who were willing to obey it. With
the
conversion of two or more, a local congregation is established and
begins to
function. In addition to meeting each first day of the week to worship,
its
main work is to evangelize, to preach the Gospel to those in that area,
and as
it grows in knowledge and numbers, it is to reach out to the whole area
in an
effort to establish other congregations.
A
Christian, or
a group of Christians, that make up a local congregation, should never
be
satisfied to just meet on the first day of the week to worship. Worship
is very
important, as well as living the daily Christian life, but each
Christian, and
the local congregation itself, should be very much aware of the need to
take
the Gospel to their family members, to friends, to those with whom they
work
and to people in general.
When
the church
is busy taking the Gospel to others, then it is happy, has a mission,
has plans
and goals to reach the lost, and as a result, the congregation will
grow both
spiritually and numerically.
Are
you a
Christian? If so, what are you doing? Are you teaching God’s
Word to those
around you? Have you converted anyone? What are your plans for the
future?
As
a member of
the Lord’s church, a member of a local congregation, what is
that congregation
doing? What efforts is it making to take the Gospel to others? Is the
church
growing? Is it establishing other congregations in the area around
where you
live? What plans does it have for the future?
May God help us to do more to take the Gospel to the world. This is the
hope of mankind. This is your hope and my hope.
The Power of
Evangelism