A plague of post-modernism is sucking the breath out of the Great Commission in our day. And so, it is sucking the life out of the church of Jesus Christ. What was once the sacred and inviolable command of Jesus to be obeyed at all costs is now subject to the the throne of personal feelings and is defined by individual interpretation – “how do I feel about it?”

I have had pastors tell me that while world missions is my calling (because I served as a missionary to Europe for twenty years), it is not God’s call for them or their local church:  “God has called us to ‘help people find wholeness,’ or ‘strengthen believers,’ or  ‘just reach our city,’ etc, but not to world missions.” Surprisingly, they take offense when I offer them scissors to cut the Great Commission out of their Bible, a Great Commission that is the very theme of the God’s Word – from Genesis to Revelation. Somewhere deep inside, they know that to cut the Great Commission out of the Bible is to gut the Bible of the Jesus.

For some in the church, obedience to Jesus is no longer the guiding principle in carrying out the Great Commission.  For these, the priority is a personal designer-missions-experience that fits me and gives me personal fulfillment. Like a new pair of shoes, missions has to “fit” these “followers of Christ” or they’re not buying it. Their guiding principle in the Great Commission is how it affects them personally, or for pastors, how it affects their designer church experience and budget.

What they are saying is that the point of missions is no longer preaching the Gospel to all the world, but crafting a participation in missions that allows them to have personally “fulfilling” missions experiences, much as the worship of God has been transformed into personally satisfying “worship experiences.” In other words, world missions is not about obedience to Jesus – preaching the Gospel to the world – but about the buzz I can get by being involved. In effect, this approach rewrites the Great Commission: “Go therefore and have exciting personal experiences in all nations; bring back pictures of you discipling and baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

But the Great Commission isn’t about me or my local church. It is first (and, and we could say, last) about Jesus and His Lordship: Jesus said do it, so do it I will. Period.

Second, the Great Commission is about the command itself: make disciples of all nations. The question is not what role would I enjoy in Christ’s mission to the world, but what role does Christ command of me, what is the most effective thing I can do to make disciples of all nations? The command of Christ is not to go into all the world to have fulfilling personal experiences in the name of missions (“Christian tourism”), but to engage in the discipleship of nations.

Finally, the Great Commission is about the nations who are to be the benefactors of Christ’s command to us: while we’re all wrapped up in the great question of will this be a fulfilling missions experience for me,  God is all wrapped up with the forgotten question of where the people of these nations will spend eternity.

Each of us is called to go; Jesus made this clear.  Unless I have clearly heard the call to stay, Jesus has already commanded me to go.  If I am called to stay, I am not then called to “stay out” of world missions.  If not, a goer, I am then called to send those who go.

As a goer or a sender, I must ask myself, “What is the most effective thing I can do to see the most people spend eternity with God? What is the most effective thing I can do to affect where people spend forever?”

The answer to the question may or may not include my own fulfillment or enjoyment. But in light of man’s problem (eternal separation from God because of sin) and God’s solution (the sacrificial death of His Son on a Cross to mediate that separation), what does my own personal fulfillment have to do with anything, except as proof that I’ve not yet let God erase man’s original sin of pride from my own life?

Such self-focused thinking is indication that there may be more ministry to do, and that this ministry lies a lot closer to home than I think.

What is important is these three questions and the truths they reveal:

Number one: Jesus and His Lordship – am I obeying the One I call Lord or merely pleasing myself in the name of the Lord and His Great Commission;

Number two: The command of the Great Commission itself – is my true goal my own experiences in missions, a kind of Christian tourism, or is it authentic discipleship;

Number three: The nations – is my heart set on what sent Jesus to the Cross – the salvation of nations, or is my heart set on MY pleasure in going to nations?

This challenge may not satisfy 21^st century, feel-good, post-modernist thinking, but it has been timeless and transcendent God-thinking since Jesus gave His Church – HIS Church – the command to disciple all nations 21 centuries ago. It remains true and transcendent in our time as well: Jesus continues to wait for our obedience, an obedience He measures not by the crowns of personal fulfillment we wear, but by the crosses we bear.

If I would follow Jesus, deny myself I must, and picking up my own cross is only just.

To live is Christ, to die is gain.