I believe especially on this occasion in Luke 8:22-26 Jesus
is preparing His disciples to understand and fulfill the Great Commission that
He would give them just before He ascended into heaven forty days after His
death, burial and resurrection. Yesterday we highlighted His invitation to His disciples
to “cross over to the other side of the lake”. Today we want to think
about the words, “He got into a boat with His disciples” (v. 22).
All four of the Gospels and Acts 1 give us what we call “The
Great Commission”. Five times it is repeated to make sure that we understand
the passion and heart of God in reaching a lost and dying world with the
Gospel. Jesus Himself didn’t come just to give us some beautiful and powerful
lessons about how to live life, or to give us a good example. No, Jesus came to
seek and to save the lost! He came to die that we might find and have eternal
life. Peter reminds us that the “Lord is not willing that any should perish
but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
Between now and the end of this year, I am going to sound
like a broken record and repeat some things over and over again. Yesterday I
reminded us that today there are over 8 billion people on earth. According to
Joshua Project, there are approximately 17,446 unique people groups in the
world with 7,391 of them considered unreached (over 42% of the world's
population)! The vast majority (85%) of these least reached groups exist in the
10/40 window and less than 3% of missionary work is done among these people.
This means there are over 3.5 billion people who have
little or no access to the Gospel. And while we speak, 97% of mission money and
efforts take place in nations like America that is saturated with the Gospel.
I received Jesus as my Lord and Savior on February 21, 1971,
in Cincinnati Ohio at Dr. Harold Rawlings home on a Sunday afternoon. A couple
months later in a Sunday evening service at Landmark Baptist Temple, I heard a missionary
from the Philippines, Dr. Bob Hugh, make a passionate plea to leave our seats
and get on a plane and join him to tell the brown-skinned people that were
sitting by the river on the Island of Cebu about Jesus. His message text was
from Ezekiel 3:15, “Then I came to the captives at Tel Abib, who dwelt by
the River Chebar; and I sat where they sat…” The title of Dr. Hugh message
was, “I Sat Where They Sat”.
I’ll never forget that night. The Lord clearly spoke to my
heart to obey His call and to go myself and tell the lost people of the world
that were lost and in captivity to sin and Satan about how Jesus could set them
free through the blood of His cross. When Dr. Hugh gave the invitation, I
raised my hand that the Lord was speaking to my heart and immediately went
forward and knelt at the altar surrendering my life to Jesus Christ and His
call “To Go”. I was scared, and had no idea
what that might mean. For some reason, I actually thought it meant that I would
go to Africa, and I immediately applied to go to Bible College to prepare.
I got into the boat that night and found out that Jesus was
there, and He has been there ever since! Even though I never personally permanently
ended up in a foreign country, the Lord gave me the passion to facilitate missions
by exhorting believers to pray, to give and to go on both short term trips and
long term assignments overseas. It has been an amazing experience. When Jesus gave
His disciples the Great Commission in Matthew 28:20, He promised them, “And lo,
I Am with you always, even to the end of the age”.
Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing some exciting
opportunities that we have today in the eastern part of India where a great
harvest of souls is happening! Please look for these extra posts on my social
media accounts and share them with as many other believers as possible!
Today, can I challenge you to also get into the boat with
Jesus and go to the other side!
God bless!
