Why The Need?

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Make Your Life Count

I have two questions for you:

What is the greatest need in the world?
How do we make our lives count in the world?

What a welcome to The Commission, huh? Two super light, very easy questions to answer, aren’t they? Before you continue reading, do give yourself a couple of minutes to answer these.

Here’s how I would answer the first question, and I’m going to go ahead and risk being accused of being overly simplistic or spiritual, but I believe the answer is clear.

The greatest need in the world is: Jesus.

The greatest problem in the world is sin, which leads to separation from God and all kinds of evil, injustice, conflict, suffering, disease, and death in the world. And the only One who can take away our sin problem is Jesus. The only One who can reconcile us to God is Jesus. He is the only One who is completely good and perfectly just, and he is the only One who has the power to bring perfect peace, unshakable joy, complete healing, and everlasting life in this world.

And we know that this world is not all there is. Everyone in this world is on a road that leads to either heaven or hell, everlasting joy or never-ending suffering, and the only way to experience everlasting joy is through Jesus.

That leads to our second question, and my assumption is that we all want to answer this question well.

How do we make our lives count in the world?

None of us want to get to the end of our lives, look back, and say, “I missed the point.” We want to make our lives count. So how do we do that?

Here’s how we, at Radical, would answer that question.

The life that counts follows Jesus…

It only makes sense, doesn’t it? If Jesus is the greatest need in the world, then Jesus is the greatest need in our lives. That means if we don’t follow Jesus, we miss the whole point of our lives.

It’s no coincidence, then, that Jesus’s first words to his followers in Matthew 4:19 were, “Follow me.” This is where life is found: in following Jesus, the Author of all life and the One who is worthy of your life. Life is found in walking with Jesus, worshiping him, hearing and obeying his word, and enjoying him to the full.

But interestingly, Jesus’s words to his initial followers didn’t stop with, “Follow me.” There was an “and” after that.

“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4:19)

Jesus takes this imagery familiar to these disciples’ vocation and tells them, “Instead of searching for fish all over the water, you’re going to spread my love all over the world.”

These were Jesus’s first words to his followers, and his last sounded very similar: “Go and make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:19).

Apparently, the life that counts doesn’t just follow Jesus.

The life that counts follows Jesus and makes him known in the world.

This also just makes sense, doesn’t it? The life that counts doesn’t keep life to yourself. It’d be like having a cure to cancer and sharing it with no one. If you did that (kept the cure to cancer to yourself), then surely you wouldn’t come to the end of your life and say, “I made it count.” No, that would be missing the point.

Most people are missing the point. Non-Christians are missing the point of life because life is only possible in Jesus. But sadly, many Christians are also missing the point. They’re settling for routine religion devoid of personal passion for Jesus, evident in how little we share about him with others.

In other words, we’re keeping the cure to sin and death to ourselves. And the result is a world where so many of our neighbors don’t know Jesus and over 3 billion people haven’t even heard the truth about who he is and how much he loves them.

At Radical, we’re on a mission to help Christians make their lives count. The Commission is another tool we’ve crafted to help you follow Jesus and make him known, regardless of who you are, where you live, or what God calls you to do.

I pray that every issue ignites your faith and encourages you to follow Jesus passionately and fearlessly as you make him known in your neighborhood and all nations.

— David Platt

This article was originally published in The Commission by Radical, a biweekly newsletter of exclusive content. Subscribe here: https://thecommission.beehiiv.com/subscribe