Go Ye Into All The World

The words of the title are well known to most church members. They are the words of Jesus to His apostles just before He ascended into heaven.  This commission given to the apostles is our commission as well.  They were told to go so then could “teach all nations.” Part of what they were to teach was obedience to whatever Jesus had commanded them (see Matthew 28:19,20).  Clearly the command to go and teach was one of those commands, so we must go.

As we travel through this life day to day we have opportunities to teach others about Jesus.  Each opportunity is faced with one of three potential reactions; we are either inactive, reactive or proactive.  When the reaction is inaction, the source is fear.  Fear that we will not be successful; fear that we cannot or will not do as well as some one else; fear that a question may arise we cannot answer.  Let us look at these fears.

When we worry about not being successful, we need to examine what success is.  Many equate success with the conversion of the person in the study.  But success is conducting the study.  When we do this we are doing what the Lord wants us to do.  Obviously we want people to obey the gospel, and that is always a good thing; but conversion is God’s job, not ours (I Corinthians 3:6).

As far as not doing it well, you may not.  But who does a great job the first few times they attempt something.  Michael Jordan, many people’s pick as the best basketball player of all time, did not make the school team the first time he tried out.  Instead of quitting, he used that failure to spur him on to trying harder to develop his abilities.  We can do the same with talking to others about the Lord.  Each effort helps develop confidence and make improvements in our presentation.  But we must put forth the effort and not allow fear to stop us.

As far as the fear of some question that may arise that you cannot answer -  It will not be a problem to say “I don’t know  but I will find out.”  Nearly every time I talked with Johnny Harrow before I obeyed the gospel, I ask him a question that he responded to like that above.  It did not stop me from studying;  it did not make me suspicious of him or his teaching. What it did was show me he was concerned about giving the right answer rather than looking like he knew it all.

We should never allow fear to prevent us from fulfilling the great commission or any other commandment of our Lord.  He does not ask to do what we are not able to do.

—Denny