Now, Go Do

Read Matthew 10.

After all these stories of healing, here comes a whole chapter of teaching...right? Actually, this is less teaching and more instruction. You could essentially boil down the whole of chapter ten into three words: "Now, go do." Jesus is sending his twelve disciples, who admittedly have not been around him all that long, to go and do what they have seen him doing. In other words, they are being sent to heal because healing is a sign of the coming kingdom.

Notice what Jesus says they are to spend their time doing while they are out: He "gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness" (10:1). They are to confront and get rid of impure (evil) spirits (spiritual healing) and to get rid of disease and sickness (physical healing). The same things they have been watching Jesus do, they are now to do.

In many ways, this commissioning, this sending, foreshadows the end of the book of Matthew (and if you haven't read it all the way through...I'll try not to spoil the ending for you), where Jesus sends them out again—this time for good! And in the words he speaks then (28:16-20), which the church has typically called the "Great Commission," we have heard a command not only for these twelve men, but for all of us who walk in their footsteps. Jesus says to them, "Now, go do." Jesus says to us, "Now, go do."

The church is still called to "go do." To be a healing presence in the midst of a broken world. To be a place where evil is confronted and no longer tolerated. To be a place where physical ailments are lifted to the Great Healer. To be a place where healing is at the center of ministry. To be a place where a cup of cold water, the very necessity of life, is offered to those in need (10:42). "Go do." Do as we have seen Jesus do. The world will never be the same if we simply "go do."

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