I almost made a terrible mistake yesterday. We were at Vera Lloyd working with the boys and one of our girls cell phones came up missing. We stopped everything and searched but could not find it anywhere. We suspected that one of the guys must have hidden it somewhere. I looked at one of the young men and asked him if he had the phone.

Now, you have to understand that this young man is one of my “favorites”. I enjoy his passion for competition and his attitude toward people. I genuinely love this young man. But my question set off an angry response. He immediately thought that I was accusing him of stealing the phone. He was genuinely mad. His anger rose to a level that I had not seen from him. He was indignant.

Then he realized that I thought he was playing a joke on the young lady who was missing the phone. His attitude changed in a flash. We found the phone. Someone had been playing a joke but it wasn’t this young man. Everything calmed down. We went back to business as usual. A bad situation was averted when he understood the intent of what I asked. It was miscommunication at its’ worst.

Words can be misinterpretted, intent can be misunderstood. There are some places in scripture that are very difficult to understand for just those reasons. There are many but some are as plan as the nose on your face. If I had told that young man that he was a liar or said that he was a thief that would not be easily misinterpretted. But by asking him if he had the phone I left room for the misunderstanding. I should have been more plain with my words.

Maybe that is why Jesus made the Great Commission so plan. You cannot miss the meaning or the intent of Matthew 28.18-20. Go means go. Read this slowly and see if you have any problem understanding what Jesus meant. “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commmanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’”

Jesus has “all authority in heaven and on earth”. Because of that fact we are to go make disciples. The commission was given to His disciples. It’s still given to His disciples. If you are His disciple then this is your commission. These are our orders. We are to go and make disciples of all nations. We are to baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We are to teach them to obey everything that Jesus has commanded us.

What part of that do you not understand? Which part is unclear? Have you misinterpretted His intent or his content? So, what are you doing about it? How are you working to carry it out? You see, this isn’t given to ministers, this is given to the followers of Jesus. This commission is given to the church. The church, if you are a baptized believer in Jesus Christ, is you. This is our commission.

Let’s stop waiting around for revival to start. Let’s rise up and do what we are told. Look around you. The nations are at your disposal. People are all around us. We need to share the truth about Jesus and people need to know the truth about Jesus. Let’s reach out to everyone that we can. Let’s go, because go means go.