Let us go forth

Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come. – Hebrews 13.12-14

Now, being established by the grace of God and accompanied by the Christ who can never leave us and being content with what He has given us what are we supposed to do?

In yet another powerful and challenging verse in Hebrews we read – parrowphrase – ‘in order to sanctify the people with His blood Jesus went forth to suffer out in the real world. So let us go forth with Him into the real world and willing to suffer His reproach. Why? Because our time here is not permanent and we seek an eternal city to come!’

Staying in a nice, quiet, comfortable, easy Christian environment can be tempting. I have lived in an environment where all my time was spent with other believers. I never had to ‘get my hands dirty.’ I did my bit, I went on ‘soul winning visitation.’ But other than that I lived in a kind of modern neomonasticism where I never had to worry about a whole lot of opposition. It was easy to ‘stay within the gate’ instead of going forth to Christ and with Christ outside the gate. It was easy to think that my city was a continuing one.

But a time came in my life when I was forced to go out. I grew up in a Christianised culture, but moved to one what was religious but has become totally secular and materialistic. I was forced to realise that not everyone ‘gets it’ when it comes to faith and a relationship with Christ. Most of my friends did not share my faith.

Even then it was and still can be easy to retreat to our own little walls of safety and security in our homes and churches. But our task is to ‘go forth’ and be willing to bear reproach if that is what is needed. As a I heard a friend tell another Christian a few years ago, if we are going to have an impact we need to be willing to ‘get our hands dirty.’

So let us go forth with our foundation of grace and the assurance that our Jesus will never leave us or forsake us. At the end we can rejoice in our eternal city to come.