Before leaving for India and since my return, I have often heard this question posed by American Christians to missionaries: “Why don’t you STAY here? Why do you need to GO? Shouldn’t you be reaching people here at home?” I’ve heard the question over and over again. I, at times, have wondered the same. “Is it necessary that I go, that I leave my home? Why can’t I stay where I am comfortable? Why can’t I just tell people about the good news right where I am?” In my fear, I usually preferred the idea of staying put and sharing the gospel where I felt most comfortable. I didn’t want to go and I didn’t really understand the importance or the need for going.
The Bible doesn’t talk a lot about staying. From Genesis to Revelation, the people God called he usually sent out from their homes. God constantly uprooted people from their comfortable life and sent them elsewhere to fulfill his purposes. Over and over again, God told people to GO. He rarely told anyone to stay put.
In Genesis, God told Abraham to go. He told him to leave his home and his family and go out into the wilderness. Genesis 12:1 is God’s command to Abraham. “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”
In Exodus, God sends Moses away from the place He was residing. God commands Moses in Exodus 3:12, “Come, I will SEND you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”
The book of Ruth is the story of a young woman who left all she held dear in order to go to a foreign land and serve the one true God at the side of her mother-in-law. Ruth left all she had and followed Naomi. Ruth was willing to give up everything she found to be comfortable and was ready to accept new and uncomfortable ways. Ruth worshiped the One True God, previously unfamiliar to her, and was blessed beyond imagining.
God called Isaiah and asked him to Go. God said in Isaiah 6:8 “Whom shall I SEND and who shall GO for us?” and Isaiah responded saying “Here I am! Send me.”
God also called Jonah and told him to go. God didn’t just tell Jonah to go to a peaceable nation or a place where ministry would be easy, he told Jonah to go to Nineveh; the last place on earth Jonah wanted to go. Jonah ran. Jonah’s running only brought about anguish and after great trial he learned to obey God and eventually went to Nineveh.
God constantly asked his servants to go or he sent them somewhere. In the New Testament, God the father sent Jesus his son to earth. Jesus was sent from his home in heaven into a dark world. 1 John 4:14 says “The Father has SENT his son to be the Savior of the world. Jesus was sent into the world and while he was in the world, he did not have a place to call home. In Luke 9:58, Jesus says “foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” Jesus didn’t stay in one place, but constantly went into different places that more might come to know Him.
At the end of His time on Earth, Jesus gave his disciples and the believers to come, the great commission. Matthew 28:19 “GO therefore and make disciples of all nations” and Mark 16:15 “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation” clearly lay out Jesus instructions for believers. Jesus said GO. He doesn’t mean go if you feel like it or go if you want to, he simply says GO. Go doesn’t have more than one interpretation. The word means move, leave, or depart. It implies ceasing to stay in one place. Jesus chose us and he tells us to go. “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear much fruit” (John 15:16). Jesus says, in no uncertain terms that we are to GO. We are to go out from our homes, we are to leave what we find comfortable in this world and we are to bear fruit and make disciples. We are to make disciples of ALL nations. Not just our own nation or one nation, but of the whole world. We are commanded not to stay, but to GO.
I don’t want to deny the call by staying put. If God has commanded for me to go, I do not want to stay. Going will not be easy, it will not be comfortable, but for the sake of the cross, it will always be worth it. In Mark 10:29-30, Jesus says “Truly, truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children for my sake and for the gospel who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time…and in the age to come.” Jesus says go and he promises to bless our obedience.
“Here I am LORD! Send me!”
