Some compelling thoughts

     I have had numerous people ask me this question over the years, “Jim, what compels you to do what you do, spending a lot of time and money traveling to various parts of the world helping and teaching people?”
     Early this past spring I was visiting with one of my previous customers. She was asking me where I had been recently and what my plans were for the upcoming summer. After answering her she retorted with this statement, “Jim, I have never met anyone who lives like you.”
     Some may have taken a statement like that as a compliment, but when she said it I was actually hurt because she was saying that my lifestyle as a Christian was seen by her to be very unusual.
     The last words of Jesus as He addresses his eleven disciples before He leaves the Earth began with these words, “Go and make disciples of all nations.”
     As he speaks to his disciples he is not just giving them and opportunity but he uses the word “Go” which is an imperative verb, which is a command.
     It is my belief, and this is the driving force behind my lifestyle, that Jesus is telling every Christian that he must “Go and make disciples of all nations,” which means that every Christian must discern what his or her God given talents are and use them to fulfill their obligation to this command. He needs to ask himself, “How can I use my gifts to fulfill my part in, “Making disciples of all nations.”
     One might say about the woman who made the statement to me, “Apparently, this woman has not met many Christians.” The sad thing is that she has met lots of Christians who believe that Jesus’ last words are a suggestion rather than a command.
     Another fact that compels me is a story that Jesus tells us in Luke Chapter 16.
     In this narrative, Jesus tells of a rich man who dies and finds himself suffering the torment of Hell.
     He compels Father Abraham to send someone from the dead to go to his brothers and warn them so they will not end up like he did. “Perhaps,” he says, “If someone who has returned from the dead goes to my brothers, they will believe and repent of their sins and avoid this place of torment.”
     This man knew the spiritual condition of his brothers and he did not want to see them end up in the same eternal torment that he had to look forward to.
     As I read this story, and I believe that it is a true story, not just a parable as some believe, I can hear the damned who are suffering the torment of Hell crying and COMPELLING ME to go to the nations and warn them that their only hope both now and eternally is to repent of their sins and trust the one who died to make eternity something to look forward to and not something to fear.