Send me.”
—Isaiah 6:8
Chapter
Twelve The Great Commission
Jesus really poured out His compassionate heart when He gave the Great Commission. He imparted some real specifics, simply presented, so that the world could understand what He was saying.
Please do not ignore His last instructions to us!
None of us has any problem understanding what He said about preaching the Gospel. Yet we pay very little attention to it. “And He said to them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:15-16). Not a single believer could ever misconstrue what Jesus said, and we have only two choices: obey Him or disobey Him! We have grown so fat spiritually in the last few years that we have ignored His heart-cry to go out and talk to every person we meet so that they can know Him as their Savior. We like to send missionaries overseas, but we need to let the heart of Jesus be so “in us” that our own hearts cry with compassion for the lost.
And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover (Mark 16:17-18)
In this instance, Jesus’ heart is not crying out to the sinner, but to the believers—not only to the pastors and evangelists, but to the ordinary, everyday believer. He is telling us that signs and wonders will follow us in our daily walk. He is telling us that we will cast out demons. He is telling us that we will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover! If the Bible is true, then let’s get on with it and begin to believe that we can do it, too—not because we make a decision that we can, but because Jesus said it. The only decision we need to make is that we will do it.
When you sincerely understand the message that the Great Commission is for all believers, and not just for a few selected
“pets” of God who have special abilities, it will change your entire life. That portion of Scripture is for each and every one of us, because God doesn’t have any “pets.” (See Acts 10:34.)
God has been stressing in our hearts that most of the body of Christ must begin to obey the command of Jesus in the Great Commission.
He told all of us to go out into the highways and byways to tell others about Him and to give them the Good News in such a way that they will know Him as their Savior and Lord. Some have learned to minister healing to a few, but every believer needs to daily lead people to Jesus with signs and wonders following. Jesus used signs, wonders, and miracles o convince people that He was the Son of God, “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). We must do exactly that in order to totally fulfill the Great Commission.
What will happen when we, the body of Christ, receive the heart and compassion of Jesus to win the lost before it is too late?
WOW! It’s exciting to even think of the potential!
Let us give a testimony of what has happened in one man’s life through the book How to Heal the Sick.
A world-known teacher – minister who had, along with his associates and team, for years been teaching laymen of foreign countries how to be pastors received some of our books.
He had never really believed in healing, but through a flier he received in the mail, he ordered our “Supernatural Special,” which included How to Heal the Sick, Supernatural Horizons, and Angels on Assignment. He thought, “I wonder if there is anything to this supernatural thing.”
He was leaving the next day for Ghana and took the healing book with him to read on the plane. He had prepared three months for his teaching while in Ghana with two associates.
When he arrived in Ghana, he could not leave for two days because of a shortage of fuel for the jeep, so the three men were stuck in the hotel for two full days and nights.
He was so excited about what he had read in How to Heal the Sick that for the two days, the three men took two-hour turns reading the book aloud, absolutely astonished and astounded at what they were learning. They tested it with the Bible, and it was all in line with the Word. It reached their spirits, and God said,
“Throw away your other teachings, and teach these people how to heal the sick.”
They taught the first day, and that night over 250 out of 500 pastors were healed. It actually worked for them, and a phenomenal ministry followed. It changed this minister’s life!
How we praise God for what can happen when only one person gets the message that “signs [and wonders] will follow those who believe” (Mark 16:17), and the message that each one of us is to do the works of Jesus.
God is so strongly impressing us to urgently preach to everyone we can that each member of the body of Christ must actually be exactly like Jesus and do all the things He did while He was the only body of Christ on earth.