"He Got it"

"All authority on heaven and on earth has been given to me, Go therefore and make disciples off 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 behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

When J.R. Vassar was being ordained, people were coming up to the front of the church to pray for him. One older pastor came by with a bit more fire then the rest, he grabbed Vassar by the shirt collar and puled him close to his face. He then growled:

"Don't ever let the great commission become something that you only read about."


When young I went to church, I heard many sermons, but few did i listen to, few do I remember. One that is clearly burned in my mind was just a story. I am not sure who preached this, if if it was Dennis Jerry or Don Williamson, it could also have been someone else. They just told a story about someone who got it. It has been years, but this has stuck with me:

A guy graduates from college, at some point previously his life was radically changed by Jesus. With his degree from some prestigious school, he bought a plane ticket and flew to some third world country where people didn't know about Jesus. He landed in the airport there, and got into a taxi, he asked the taxi driver to take him where he lived, where the taxi driver lived. The driver asked why. The guy explained that his life had been changed by the love of Jesus, and that he want to love the people where the taxi driver was from to show them this love. As they started to drive, the guy asked the driver what was a need in the place where he lived. The driver explained how they really needed a community day care type thing in order for parents to work to bring in enough money to feed their families. The guy starts a day care in the taxi drivers neighborhood. He loves the people there, when they ask why he told them about Jesus, and they asked more about Jesus. Then a church was planted in the village and the lives of the people began to change as they turned to Jesus with their sin, were washed clean, and were filled with the Holy Spirit.

Whoever preached this, simply said:
"He Got it"

I heard this as a kid and i was confused, I was confused because it was clear to me that this was not what my church was like, this was not what the lives or people around me were like. I figured out that there was some difference between what Jesus taught and how we were to act. I learned that we were nor perfect and rested my case there. My prayer from here on is that if you agreed with my last line, if it has become a similar thought to how you think, my prayer is that this would land in your lap like a grenade and blow up your world view.

As i grew i decided that people were good, just not perfect, and that was how it worked. I based my beliefs on thoughts on what I thought was nice, on what wouldn't offend anyone.

It stuck with me thought, "He Got it"

There was a significant break between my life and his. I thought about being like him, I wasn't so sure about going to another country, but the fullness of how he got it, of how he did what Jesus said, I wanted to be like that. I wanted to be like him, then people would talk about me in churches and I would be famous, and have lived a really great life, even if i was short. I missed a part of the story, the guy I told you about, he was killed, I think that he was eventually shot by another religious group.

God is big and he has changed my life, he has shown me the folly of my religious past, the folly of taking scripture to mean what i want it to. The folly of forming my ideas around the culture that I live in rather than around the eternal story of God. He taught me, sometimes quite directly, sometimes, though men and women who's lives he had previously changed. I was shown that i was wrong to think that people are good but not perfect, an idea that keeps us from needing Jesus. I learned that I was selfish, motivated to satisfy my own desires, often using the church to do that.

I had thought that people were goos because if i thought that they were bad, I would be condemning them. I didnt know that we are all condemned for our actions, for our sin, for our rebellion against God. I didint know that on the cross God died for my sins, that his death, was payment for all the crap that I have done.

And because i didnt know that, I was sinful and separated from God, I didn't have the Holy Spirit in me, and had no idea of the standards of God, so I settled. I settled for putting in some effort, aware that I couldn't really do what Jesus taught becuase I was not perfect.

Then God dropped a grenade in my lap, gracefully, lovingly destroying the lies that I belived in.

I was a selfcentered person, trying to be my own god, using Jesus to make my self out to be a good person, I chased after idenntity, after value trying to be someone. Then I got the grace to know that I wasn't good enought, and that I didnt have to be, but that Jesus had paid in full the dept, the hurt, the sin, that I had accumulated over my life, and I was being offered a new life, a life different from the past, where I now live for God, I am able to do this not because of my goodness, but becuase I know that I am not and the Holy Spirit now is in me, puching and pulling me, calling out my sin, leading me on.


I get it. It is all about Jesus. I count my life as nothing. I am just God's I am not nice, not good, not wise, not humble, or good at writing as you know by now. but I am his, I am holy by the cross.

I want you to know this, i want you to come too, I want you to get it.

And on a final note, if I die and you are still alive, you bette make this story clear at my funeral, that it is all about Jesus, in a much more real way that you think.

If you have questions, feel free to ask me, but more so, read the bible, and ask God to grow you to him, ask him to reveal himself to you that his revolution of Love will take over your life.


If you think your a Christian, and the great commsion has become soething you just read about, ask God to change you, to take over your life.