Powered by RedCircle
This is Faith to Witness 99, motivating us to hear God and share the Shepherd.
Season 2 Episode 114
The Beat | Jesus Commissions My Life for His Glory
Quick Take
Hey human, in this episode we hear what Jesus said that was named The Great Commission. We consider challenges of a life commissioned by Jesus. Discover who leads our witness. End with Paul, but no, wait that’s the beginning. Thanks for listening.
How has God shown his love for you today?
I’m Kathryn Bise, your host.
Today is about persuasion, the WHY of our witness, the heart of it all. It leads to Jesus. Our premise is that Jesus commissions our life for His Glory.
We just looked at Matthew Chapter 6. Give, pray, fast, treasure, then trust, and first seek.
In e113 I discovered something so important to me that I have been turning it over and over in my heart. The phrase was “committing to a transparent life. A life that reflects the personal process of seeking the Kingdom and His righteousness.” This gave me new clarity on deep my faith is anchored in God’s faithfulness, and my witness is pure and simple, what I have to show for it.
A transparent daily testimony.
That you see Jesus through my actions. Through how I love.
Maybe you know or have heard of The Great Commission. And where it is in the Bible. It is a sub-header included by Bible scholars late in Christian history to help summarize certain verses.
Some scholars say that Baron Justinian von Welz, a 17th-century Lutheran, coined the term, and some have verified that Hudson Taylor used it in the late 1800s in reference to his recruiting missionaries to China. In general, it is often-quoted scripture originally tied to mission efforts often in other countries. This context is probably one reason why so many Christians do not take this personally, as a personal responsibility.
Jesus never used this phrase.
So, what did Jesus say that later became known as The Great Commission?
All of the four Gospels and the book of Acts share His words that are associated with The Great Commission.
First, Matthew and Mark share how Jesus said to go make disciples and preach the Gospel.
Matthew 28:16-20
The Great Commission
16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Mark 16:14-16
14 Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.
15 He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
At the moment when ascension is imminent, when Jesus has the hearts of his disciples in His resurrected gaze, He tells them to make disciples through baptism and teach them how to live an obedient life. He tells them to continue the spiritual journey they have been on with Him. To continue to be disciples making disciples.
When Jesus Commissions You
What happens when Jesus commissions you? I personally think the word “commission” is perfect for strengthening your witness. Take the art world:
If I were to commission an artist, take for instance one I personally know who does amazing portraits.
This is what I would need to consider:
Her rate as an artist.
My budget, simply what can I afford?
Is what I envision within her style, and what is the extent of creative freedom I will give her?
Where will this piece be displayed? Are there specific materials I am asking for?
This short dialogue with my artist friend on a morning beach walk, tells the story simply:
We were talking about her creative gift to capture the essence of a person in a portrait. So amazing.
I said, “do you aspire to doing only private art commissions?”
She said, and I paraphrase: “There are challenges in doing private commissions, with portrait work. We start with a photo the client thinks represents the person being portrayed. But what the client sees, may not be what I see.”
And she went on to explain a conversation she had with a recent client and came to the realization that the client wanted the portrait to reflect a different mood than she (the artist) saw in the photo.
Although I cannot remember how, adjustments were made, as I remember this conversation.
The point is humans see the same things differently. Consider this process in the context of a relationship with Jesus. When Jesus commissions someone’s life, here’s how that goes down. Take me, for instance.
Jesus is the artist.
He paid the price for my life on the cross. My life is His canvas.
And He knows my life will be displayed through my witness of His work on His canvas.
My conviction comes by claiming, accepting and living in this truth: Jesus is the artist. This is a tough gig for a human. It is tough for me to source my creativity through Him sometimes. To use my spiritual gifts on His canvas. When He isn’t standing right there with paint brush in hand, and I want to just say “give me the paint brush, Jesus.” It is a challenge to see through His eyes.
Yet He made my creative instincts. He knows my love of words, my skill; He alone fulfills my potential.
Because He is the artist. I am His canvas. Which brings me right up to the omniscience of Jesus. He has always known our struggle, the struggle we recognize when He had this conversation with His disciples.
The Holy Spirit Leads Your Witness
There is another element in The Great Commission. Not an element really, but the agency for spiritual living. Luke and John illuminate the agent that makes it possible for twelve apostles who spent three short years with the Savior of the world, who ran their questions through His days like a river that might run dry. Twelve men who tried to make sense of 350 prophecies and how He was fulfilling all of them along dusty roads, local temples, gardens, hillsides, synagogue steps, cliffs, the sea.
Was seeing believing?
I imagine that just when they felt like they were beginning to experience illuminating moments of truth, they were beginning to “get Jesus” it escalated quickly into the garden, the cross, the resurrection. I imagine the shock they were feeling in the room, with locked doors. I imagine them thinking, “what just happened?”
It seemed He was gone. And they were afraid.
Luke 24:44-49
44 He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”
45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
John 20:19-23
Jesus Appears to His Disciples
19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
Acts 1:4-8
4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
What is Jesus saying? The Holy Spirit is our spiritual inspiration. The Holy Spirit leads our witness.
He is saying create a life that illuminates His face through the work of the Spirit. He will guide you.
John tells us.
John 15:26
The Work of the Holy Spirit
26 “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me.
What Will Your Commissioned Canvas Be Worth?
When we think of our life, our witness as the canvas on which Jesus paints, what is its value?
What would be an example of how a simple art commission grew into fulfilled potential? Consider the graffiti artist David Choe (Chow), who accepted payment in shares for painting graffiti art in the headquarters of a fledgling Facebook. His shares were of limited value at the time, but by the time of Facebook’s IPO they were valued at around $200 million. Vincent van Gogh is known to have sold only one painting in his lifetime, The Red Vineyard, for 400 French francs (approximately $2,000 in 2018 dollars).
In both cases, the work was done with creative humility. A rather selfless love of the art.
On the other extreme, the Salvator Mundi (“Saviour of the World”) painting shows Christ with a haunting expression on his face. He is holding a glass orb in one hand while his other hand is raised with fingers crossed, as though blessing whoever was looking upon it. Believed to have been commissioned around 1500, Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi was painted for either King Louis XII of France or his consort, Anne of Brittany. Fast forward through a long and complex history of this amazing work, to Christie’s in November 2017. Leonardo da Vinci’s 500-year-old “Salvator Mundi” was sold for a record-shattering $450.3 million.
While money is an effective way to demonstrate value, scope and scale, it powerfully lays the premise for this question:
What will your commission, your life given to Jesus be worth? A life representing your selfless love of not the art, but the artist.
I think this is symbolic to how the unique skills, gifts and life path Jesus gives me will represent His eternity-shattering sacrificial work. My life will be the worth of what Jesus sacrificed to sit at the right hand of the Father. He is on that throne.
Because if I accept His commission, it is His face, His canvas others will see. Far and beyond $450 million.
Committing to a Transparent Life
I have been talking about committing to a transparent life, defining it as a life that reflects the personal process of seeking the Kingdom and His righteousness. And every word Jesus tells us is divinely given, for His divine purpose. If He commissions His disciples, I want to know about it. I want to know how He commissions me to go find the one.
On the road to Damascus the apostle Paul was commissioned by Jesus. Commissioned to use everything Paul had used to gain ground against Jesus, to now gain the victory through Jesus. To support, to encourage, to protect the Christians he had once persecuted. To seek, teach, and baptize the Gentiles he had been taught to turn away from.
To use:
His rabbinic training as a boy.
His deep background in the Jewish culture.
His dual standing as a Roman citizen.
His fire.
And witness the power of his encounter with Jesus and his empowerment as an apostle of the Gentiles through the Holy Spirit. It is through Paul that we have so many ways to let God draw closer to us.
On the road to Damascus…
Acts 26:15-18
15 “Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’
“ ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. 16 ‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. 17 I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them 18 to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’
When we step out of thinking that witnessing is a separate scenario, a specific skill, a spiritual gift, when we begin to see it as our life unfolding in front of others, all kinds of divine power is released.
When we step out of thinking that witnessing is a solo act, and open our lives to the Holy Spirit leading our witness, all kinds of divine power is released.
And like Paul, we greet each morning with Paul’s question: “Who are you, Lord?”
Tell us more, Paul.
Episode 115.
“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”
Luke 15:4-7
God’s faith to your witness. Go find the one.
Hey human.
Share a Season 2 episode of THE BEAT with someone in your world. And a quick one-time rating/review on your listening platform.
For weekly Faith to Witness 99 podcast prompts subscribe at kathrynbise.com.
I can be reached directly at: deeperwater@kathrynbise.com Let’s connect.
@buoykathrynb on Instagram.
Faith to Witness 99 on Facebook Business.
Faith to Witness 99 is a Life in Deeper Water podcast.