Recently I spoke with several different leaders of various ministries about becoming involved in an upcoming meeting for the Jesus Alliance. Several expressed reservations because its goals and theirs were not identical, in that the ultimate goal of the Jesus Alliance is to be obedient to God’s command as recorded in all four Gospels to go and preach the “Good News” and disciple every nation.
One person has a marketplace ministry which encourages businessmen and women to talk about God in the workplace and for them to use their platforms to promote Godly values as being integral to a moral society. Another has a ministry that is involved with trying to restore Judeo-Christian values in government. She works with legislators on a variety of projects to bring God back to the public square. Another works strictly with abortion issues and does not want to be distracted by any issues that do not work towards saving the lives of unborn babies. Another has a ministry involved strictly in prayer for the restoration of America. Another had a ministry that strictly encourages people to read the Bible. One gentleman wants to bring Bibles back to schools. Oddly another has an evangelistic ministry for millennials and does not want to spend any time on any issue not directly related to that subject and he thinks our agenda might be too broad and distract him too much.
All of these conversations occurred in just one week. One can easily see why it is so difficult to get the body of Christ to work together. My response was that the Jesus Alliance wants to unite ALL believers with each other under the leadership of Jesus Christ whereby we can pool our vast resources together whereby nothing will be impossible to achieve.
It seems to me that all of the foregoing ministries are a necessary ingredient of fulfilling God’s “Great Commission” of evangelizing the world. Consider for a moment what it would be like if all of the ministries listed and the millions of others were wildly successful with their respective callings. Evangelism would no doubt be far easier to accomplish. We would live in a society very conducive to leading people to receiving Christ and living a Spirit filled life.
But some might argue that evangelism should not be the end result that everyone should be trying to achieve.
Hmmm…In the end what good would it do if we lived in a perfect utopia with no crime, abortion, racism, poverty, greed, corruption, deviant sexual conduct, etc. and yet the world did not know Jesus Christ as their Savior? Consider that today’s average life span is 79.9 years. So we would have nearly 80 years of bliss and then spend eternity in hell separated from God. How can that make sense?
No one has to give up doing the work of Christ; in fact we need to increase it. We should engage in the same things that Jesus engaged in, namely: Bible study, prayer, witnessing, discipleship, compassion ministry, and Kingdom building; however the Bible is clear that the net result should be that it should all point towards leading the lost towards the cross.
The Jesus Alliance is simply an organization devoted to doing the things that Jesus did, and according to the Bible (that I have studied for 45 years) that is what we should all be doing. God wants us to work together as a body works together. Not everyone has the same function. If we were all eyes in the body of Christ we could see very well, but we couldn’t do anything but see. A body cannot function very well or in some cases at all without all of its members doing their individual tasks and working in unison together.
I submit to you that everything that the church does to glorify Christ is necessary, but that the end result of our lives on this planet should be to help facilitate leading those who do not know Christ as their Savior to His saving grace. Selah . . .
Romans 12:4
For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly . . .
February 22, 2016 – Click here to listen