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Ugh, I started this piece to process, not a big revelation piece – but processing as a newish Christian… But as a newish Christian thru I got a jolt of reality, a challenge to my motivation… Fits the essential question I was asking: so how do I fulfill the great commission to God’s will and not what is perceived to be my will?…

Notice Christianity? How do I fulfill the Great Commission? 08Jul

When one is a new Christian, do people notice? Should people notice? Should you tell them? How then is the great commission accomplished?

How do I fulfill the great commission? And do I set a goal? Or just let it happen?

I’ve lost weight, so to people who know me, they know I am proud and I am trying not to boast but let them know that if I could do it, they could too… Some notice and congratulate me, some notice and don’t mention it because that’s not proper etiquette… Obviously people you first meet wouldn’t know any different…

Same with being a new Christian… so to people who know me, they know I am proud and I am trying not to boast but let them know that if I could do it, they could too… Some notice and congratulate me, some notice and don’t mention it because that’s not proper etiquette to out someone else’s personal Christianity… Obviously people you first meet wouldn’t know any different…

And honestly, although I feel the miracle that happened to me and turned my world upside down, I am not that super different to the outside world… I did not go from drug addict to sober soul, from nasty person to nice person… if you ask people who know me they probably would tell you that I have strived to live a clean “goodies two shoes” life my whole life….It’s not like I went from a non-church goer to a church goer… I already felt like church was a home away from home, creeping around like a church mouse after hours, amazed at the humongous resource which is barely used such few hours in the day… Everyone knows me as a worker bee… My name in Hebrew means bee.

So, how do I fulfill the Great Commission?

I went from SUPER sinner to saved soul. Still a sinner… Saved people are still sinners, big time… So that’s why I wonder if any efforts I make to spread the good news may be construed as self-serving…. People who don’t know me might say: are you just trying to perpetuate a dying institution in corporate churches? They might say anything I do to promote how God has changed my life are “self-promoting” and fulfilling MY commission and not God’s… They may devalue me and cause me doubt…

I would say, “Don’t you see the golden opportunities that God has placed in my path, don’t you see that focusing on God caused great changes in my life and will cause great changes in your life?” And yet you can’t challenge people, they have to see for themselves…

Maybe God wants me to NOT boast about my salvation… But Paul says it’s ok to tell of others salvation… Hmmm… I know God made me a writer for this purpose of sharing his great power. I can’t think of any other reason why I would have to start writing. & I always say I didn’t come to God in crisis so there’s gotta be a point in all this that fits the Great Commission.

Maybe that’s why God gave me “a visual”, maybe I am losing weight to not just be healthier, but so that when people say “WOW” I can tell them privately, at the right moment, that it’s ALL BECAUSE OF GOD… That God gave me willpower and blessed me with motivation… I have been able to share that with maybe a dozen people who I truly did not know… I do now see how easy it is to become complacent, skipping exercise, eating mindlessly… This might happen to me as a Christian? Ugh, I don’t know… I know you have to actively prayerfully pursue Christian life, it’s not a one and done, it’s not a “saved and see ya whenever I get to heaven…” no, it’s keeping your eyes firmly fixed on Jesus and salvation… salvation is a marathon not a one time race in my opinion you can easily go wrong again… I know heaven is like that old Motel 6 ad… “we will always keep a light on for you” … but to become complacent again in Christianity would be a sin…

Setting goals: I didn’t choose to lose weight, just wanted more energy and get my act together… do I set a goal? Seeing results can make you do that. Or do I just let it happen? …. I also didn’t choose to become a hundred percent right with God, I didn’t choose the way God got my head on straight, but just God wanted me to credit my energy to HIM and get my act together… so I didn’t have to set a goal…. I did just have to let it happen…

God commissioned me to spread the good news… I have so many skills to use… I just want to try my best…

I should not set a Great Commission goal, but I did set a hope…. I stood there Feb 1st at the 911 memorial, knowing I could say “am YOURS now God”… I held onto the twisted beam and remembered 3,000 people perished that day and then I remembered that once Peter spoke one sermon that caused the simultaneous conversion of 3000 people… and I thought maybe God, just maybe, I can touch the lives of 3000 people… But I know it’s only if God chooses that… ONLY GOD knows HIS plan for me… I will just keep listening… I will just try my best… Thanks GOD for envisioning big things for me… Thanks God for forgiving me… Thanks GOD for finding me when I was lost… Thanks for keeping the LIGHT on until I get home…

Ephesians 3:20-21, NIV, Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.