ALWAYS WITH US
Jesus came and told His disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on the earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20 NLT)
Most of us like the idea that God is with us when we want Him with us; we want Him to come quickly on the scene when we call! We want to do what we call Him to do and we want it done quickly. After all, He knows what we want before we say it, so what takes so long? Why doesn’t He do what we want? If He heard me, why did He ignore me? Once we start down that road for figuring things out, it is easy to gain momentum and end up missing a curve and going right off a cliff that damages our faith.
This passage starts with Jesus telling us that He has been given all authority and implying that He is passing it on to us. We like that idea too, except when we forget that He also gives us an assignment and tells us what to teach about keeping the commands that He has given us. If we are going to help others obey, we need to obey too!
Could it be that He is with us to help us with the whole assignment? Now there is a thought! He is not going to abandon us with that kind of authority. We need help to walk in that. We need guidance to know what our nation is. Is it our family, our neighborhood, our workplace, our friends, or the other side of the world? He knows and will certainly guide us. It is good to be faithful where we are and for Him to let us know what is next.
We do not necessarily love the commands thing that He mentions. Still we take comfort in knowing that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. He is also with us to strengthen us and lead us to a place where His commands are actually our desires and the things that make us happy. Seriously, have you ever helped someone out of a feeling of obligation only to end up being so glad that you did? And yes of course there are times when we help and never do feel all that happy about it. That is when we understand why we should do everything as unto the Lord. We should always be happy working with Him!
Jesus wants people who want Him to have all that He has to offer. His disciples loved following Him. He wanted them to help others to experience the same thing.
They had ups and downs. They had times when the authority he talked about was on full display. They also had times when it did not seem to work. Then Jesus would come and it worked perfectly. He used these times to teach them to press on. We should always remember to press on! Just because it is not the way we want, we need to hold on to the fact that He has not dKeep praising and thanking!