After Jesus launched his ministry, he was filled with a constant sense of urgency in his mission. He even worked on the Sabbath, which was such a big no-no to the Jewish powers-that-be that they got in his face about it. But Jesus pointed out that if an animal belonging to one of them fell into a ditch, surely they’d break the Sabbath to rescue it, and by that same token people who’ve fallen into spiritual ditches and have been suffering there for years also need immediate rescue, even on a Sabbath. The Jewish ptb didn’t have the same sense of urgency to help people that Jesus had and it showed in their superficial application of God’s laws, so when Jesus told them that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, they considered it to be heresy rather than God’s truth.

Maybe not you, but most Christians today have lost their sense of urgency when it comes to hauling people up out of spiritual holes. Jesus never took time off other than to eat and sleep. His focus was 100% on his ministry work because he had a sense of urgency that this work was all that mattered. If we as Jesus’ followers are supposed to model him in all ways, why do we not have a sense of urgency to get the message out to repent and believe the gospel?

Most Christian preachers are instead more interested in tailoring the message to get more money out of the people. Don’t tell me I’m wrong about that; you know I’m right. And don’t tell me that “churches need money to function” – I know that and God knows that, but just like Jesus told us not to worry about what we’ll eat or wear (God will take care it), we’re also not to worry about having enough money to keep a church going because IF THE CHURCH IS FROM GOD, God will take care of it without our having to goad people into giving. God loves a cheerful giver, and there is no cheer in being goaded to give.

A sense of urgency in spreading God’s Word is crucial for three main reasons: One, we’ve been told to go out into the world and preach the Good News, so not to do so with urgency would be defying that directive; two, nearly the entire world’s population (including Christendom) is on the road to Hell. If you’re honest with yourself, you’d admit that, and admitting that, you’d feel the same urgent desire that Jesus felt during his ministry to reach out and haul someone out of the spiritual ditch; and three, we don’t know when we’re going to die, so we need to make use of every second we have left during our time on Earth to do God’s will, which for us as born-agains is to go out into the world and preach the Good News.

Jesus did not have to be goaded into going out into the world to preach the Good News. In fact, he had to be held back until God gave him the green light (same with Paul). Maybe that’s why there’s so little sense of urgency in most Christians these days – God hasn’t given them the green light because they aren’t actually Christians. The church buildings that are still standing (and haven’t yet been turned into condos) are mostly filled with do-gooders and lip-servers who likely would have hated Jesus back in the day, as he would have pointed out that all their do-gooding and lip-serving wasn’t actually doing any good and wasn’t going to get them to Heaven. Christians today are characterized by unbelievers as mealy-mouthed do-gooders who are either completely clued-out regarding how the world works (news flash: it’s under the control of Satan) or are secret porn-hoarders and everything they do is for show, just like the hypocrites of yore. My experience with Christians is that the unbelievers aren’t far off the mark in that regard.

Look, folks – all I know is this: If we Christians had any sense of urgency about the importance of preaching the Word to a fallen world, we would stop our do-gooding and tsk-tsking and head out into the world, like Jesus did, preaching the Word until we dropped dead, like Jesus did. We would preach it in spirit and in truth, like Jesus said we should, and we would only take time off to eat and sleep, like Jesus did. Soldiers in the heat of battle don’t get time off other than to eat and sleep and are pushed to the limits of their endurance. WE ARE SOLDIERS AND WE ARE IN BATTLE AND WE ARE FIGHTING NOT FOR SOMETHING AS PETTY AND UNIMPORTANT AS OUR LIVES OR OUR COUNTRY – WE ARE FIGHTING FOR OUR ETERNAL SALVATION. Jesus told us to “endure to the end”, as that is the only way we will be saved. Just being born-again doesn’t mean we’re saved; being born again means we’re spiritually healed and made right with God. We still have to get through our daily temptations and we still have to go out into the world and preach the Good News.

I’m not sure how big a bonfire God has to light under our individual and collective butts to get us up and going, but consider this blog post as another log thrown on the fire.

If you go back to doing your daily worldly routine after reading this, you’re no better than the people who made excuses why they couldn’t follow Jesus right away. You’re no better than the do-gooders and lip-servers and hypocrites.

And we know what Jesus thought of them.

If God has given you the green light, GET OUT THERE TODAY AND PREACH THE GOOD NEWS IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST! Heal by the power of God’s Spirit all those how come to you for healing and cast out the demons that God gives you strength to cast out. Jesus promised us that he would be with us until the end of the world, and so he is. JESUS IS RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW, and he is always ready to help, so LET HIM HELP YOU. Let him guide you. Let him teach you. Let him refresh and revive you. Let him take over every part of you, by the power of God’s Spirit, so that you can do what he did, and more (he said that – he said that we would be able to do what he did, and more, so what’s stopping you?).

If God hasn’t given you the green light, tell him that you want to do his will and his will only, and that you want to do it NOW. Whatever God tells you to do in repentance, do it without hesitation, and then God will heal whatever needs to be healed in you and equip you for battle.

Time is short. All we have is this one life that can end at any second. If you don’t see the urgency in that, you are, as Jesus would say, not worthy.