Your Marching Orders

I like to build things and I find that making sawdust is therapeutic for me. And I learned a long time ago that in order to build, construct, cook, make a dress or to travel from point “A” to point “B,” it really helps to have a drawing, a schematic, a recipe, a pattern or a map. “You gotta have a plan!”

I believe that God has a plan for His creation and it is mapped out in His holy word, the Bible. It’s a plan for us to be in union with Him in the here and now and for all of eternity. And, as with all plans, there must be some ingredients or raw materials in order to carry out the plan. Yet there is a “catch” in the plan. For it to work, someone has to carry out His plan of spreading the good news to “all nations.” So, it seems to me, that in that sense, you and I are the materials, the ingredients required for “the plan” to work.

And so it is that I invite you to read and pray, and then to pray and read again the scripture often referred to as the great commission:

"Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.'”
Matthew 28:16 RSV

Now you have your marching orders! “ Go therefore… ” Who? YOU! Young, old, male and female. Who? Well, in East Texas, we’d say, “All y’all.” Or as my former secretary from the Bronx would say, “All youse guys!”

Go therefore and make disciples!

The Rev. Robert E. Wareing
Pastoral Care Associate