by Buddy Leasor*
Christians are to live by every word of God. We can see that in Matthew 4:4 where Jesus
was rebuking the devil. But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread
alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ “ Since we are to live by every
Word of God then Matthew 28:19 is not excluded from the number of scriptures taught by Him.
Here in verse 19 Jesus commanded the eleven disciples “Go therefore and make disciples of all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching
them to observe all things that I have commanded you; lo, I am with you always, even to the end
of the age.” Since the inspired Word of God is filled with many commandments which were taught
to the ones present at the time doesn’t mean that those words don’t apply to us today. Every word
inspired by God is meant for all mankind. In Matthew 4:4 when Jesus said “Man shall not live by
bread alone,…..” includes all mankind by the use of the word “Man”. Also, in Romans 1:16 Paul
said “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for
everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. So, by these scriptures you can see
we are to live by every word of God, we are to go and teach the gospel and the commandments
are for everyone who believes.
Now that we know by scripture that the gospel applies to us today and we are to live by every
word of God let’s examine the dire need to go and spread the gospel. In addition to Matthew 28:19
we see again the great commission in Mark 16:15 Jesus told his disciples “Go into all the world
and preach the gospel to every creature.” But how serious is this commission and why? In 2
Corinthians 5:9-11 we have the answer. Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent,
to be well pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, that each
one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are well known to God, and
I also trust are well known in your consciences.
It is clear in the bible that our purpose in life is to serve God and keep His commandments
Colossians 1:16 and Ecclesiastes 12:13-14. Evangelizing is one-way Christians can be serving to
God and keeping His commandments. How are we going to pull off evangelizing in Berkeley
County, West Virginia? We started with prayers, planning and counted the cost Luke 14:28. It will
take lots of time. Our plan is to pick the first Saturday of each month from 10:00 AM to 12:00
noon. If the first Saturday is not suitable due to weather or other reasons we will postpone to the
second Saturday and so forth. We are starting with the new movers first and once those are
completed we’ll begin going door to door by selecting our first road. At this point we realized we
needed some sort of tracking plan. Jeremy Leasor has designed a spreadsheet for tracking each
address and status of each person contacted. While door knocking we will document the house
number and road name on the paper copy of the spreadsheet. In addition, a county map will be
updated showing area covered. We will record on the spreadsheet if contact was made or if no one
was at home then leave a door knocker. If someone requested a bible study at the time of contact
we will set up a time for that study while at their house. Usually, the bible study will be scheduled
for Sunday or Wednesday during bible class. We have ten volunteers for personal bible study. We
have child care provided if needed for the door knockers, security for child care, door knockers
planned are two Christians per vehicle and we have volunteers for map keeping. After completing
the door-to-door visits, we will all meet back at the church building to secure the information that
will be passed off to Jeremy for updating the spreadsheet.
*Buddy currently serves as one of our elders. I appreciate him submitting this article for the
Bulletin. —RCV
