The Great Promise

I love the great promise of Matthew 24:14. This Gospel will be preached to all nations, and then the end will come. Is there a sweeter 'and then' in all the Bible?

Jesus doesn't say the Gospel should be preached, or might be preached, or could be preached, He says it will be preached to all nations, and then the end will come. And we know Jesus is coming, we know the end is coming, so we know that the Gospel will fill the Earth as the waters fill the sea.

Nations doesn't mean Canada, Mexico and Brazil, but language groups or ethnic groups. The Gospel will be preached in and to every language, and then Jesus will return. So there's no fence sitting in the Christian life. There's no waiting around to see who wins, and then jumping in, we commit to pray, participate and proclaim.

We commit to pray. Jesus told us to. When He looked at the fields white for harvest, He didn't tell us to go, he told us to pray. How we pray for the end is how we gauge our passion for Jesus return. We don't prepare for His return with rapture wallcharts and collecting tinned food. Neither do we prepare for His return by doing nothing about it. We pray, maranatha, come Lord Jesus.

As we pray, we participate. We take part in the life of our local church, we commit our time and our treasure and our talents to what our church is doing. We share our faith with our friends, we let them know that we have found a feast in the wilderness, we ask them to come with us, because we will do them good, we tell them of our beloved and invite them to enjoy Him with us. We pray and we participate.

And we proclaim. The Gospel isn't true because it works, but it does work because it is true. It changes people, and so, because know the Gospel overcomes, we share the truth of it with people. We're not worried about being slurred because we believe in one God and one way to Him, we go and we lay down our lives to share the Gospel, like the millions before us have.

Is the great promise of Matthew 24:14 making a difference in your life? Are you praying? Are you participating? Are you proclaiming?