Too often, we compare ourselves with…
- eloquent, powerful preachers
- wise, experienced counselors
- heroic, widely traveled missionaries
- wealthy, influential leaders
- popular, charismatic trendsetters, and
- knowledgeable, degreed scholars.
They seem so skilled, so much better equipped for effective evangelism. We feel so inferior that we quit, leaving the task of evangelizing to the experts. Such comparisons are foolish (2 Corinthians 10:12). Worse, they work against the Great Commission’s perfect plan. Jesus engaged every Christian—even ordinary Christians, even new Christians, even less talented Christians—in making disciples for very important reasons.
The Lord wants to rescue every person on earth (Mark 16:15; 1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9). How many individuals are in your town and your nation? The earth’s total population is rocketing past eight billion! To reach so many individuals, Jesus deploys His full workforce, not just a few elites. He strengthens His team by giving its members different gifts (Romans 12:4-8; 1 Peter 4:10-11). He places them for contact with all sorts of people: men and women, young and old, poor and rich, educated and uneducated, gifted and ungifted, healthy and unhealthy, reputable and despised, successful and failing.