The Great Commission

Friday, 9

A Week of Prayer and Fasting

This week, churches throughout the Bitterroot Valley have been gathering twice a day to pray and to fast as God has led. It has been an amazing and powerful week—evidence of God’s heart for revival, a revival born directly from His own heart. It begins in each individual church and then flows outward, uniting the churches together in one Spirit.

I know without a doubt that God has been pouring into and through His saints this week as they’ve come together before Him. In faith, I believe wholeheartedly that He will also fill His churches with people. Revival is already stirring. Just this week, I had the privilege of sharing my testimony twice—two God-filled moments where He used my story to draw people to Himself. I am certain it hasn’t stopped there. Every church across the valley is filled with stories of His movement—open doors, divine appointments, and lives touched by His presence.

Prepared for Revival

God has been preparing His people for this. Even in our men’s study over the past year and a half, He has been teaching us how to disciple—how to walk alongside others in the faith. That was no accident; it was preparation for revival. God knows exactly what He’s doing. This week of prayer is going to be the spark that ignites an explosion of growth in our churches.

Are you ready to be part of what God is doing?

And as a quick word to the men—if your church doesn’t have a 6 a.m. Friday morning men’s gathering, we would love to have you join ours. This is not just a Cornerstone Bible Church men’s group; it is a Bitterroot Valley men’s group where growth together in Christ is real, raw, transparent, and filled with the passion of Jesus to lead and reach our world.

The Great Commission

God has uniquely placed each of us in this exact time and place in history. He breathed His breath into your lungs with a specific plan for your life. It is time to lean into that plan. His call is crystal clear in the Great Commission:

Matthew 28:16–20
“Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw Him they worshiped Him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them,
‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. 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 that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’”

All authority—not some, but all—belongs to Jesus. This is profound because He spoke these words knowing that we would need His power to fulfill this mission. Only days later, He would pour out the Holy Spirit, empowering His people to proclaim the Word and bring healing into the lives of others. And here’s the thing—He does it through human connection, through relationship. We are His chosen vessels to carry that power to the world.

And the Great Commission doesn’t stop at proclamation. Jesus calls us not only to share the message but to make disciples—walking alongside people, teaching them to live out all that He has commanded. Which raises the question: how can we teach others to obey His commands if we do not know them ourselves?

The Two Greatest Commands

Let’s go to Scripture and see where the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus, and hear His clear, unexpected definition of His commands:

Matthew 22:37–40
“And He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.’”

First—love God with all your heart. Stop for a moment, close your eyes, and truly reflect: do you love Him? Does that reality ignite something deep within you? It should. The God of the universe, who spoke creation into being and breathed life into your lungs, wants a personal, intimate love relationship with you. And He commands it. For many of us, that truth is what drew us to Him in the first place. We saw what He had done for us and could only cry out, “Oh my God, I do not deserve this love!”

But notice—Jesus does not stop there. The very next verse gives the second command: love your neighbor as yourself. So many believers stop halfway, thinking “love God” is the full command. That’s only half the truth. Jesus plainly says, “On these two commands hang all the Law and the Prophets.” They are not separate. They are one and the same in the kingdom of God. He came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it—and for us to walk in that fulfillment, we must obey both commands as one unified call.

Abiding and Bearing Fruit

John 15:1–4 paints the picture clearly. Disciple-makers bear fruit, and fruit always bears after its own kind. That means as followers of Jesus, we are meant to produce more followers of Jesus—multiplying the life of Christ into others.

This is exactly what Jesus was teaching the very night He was arrested. In His final hours, He spoke these words with urgency, knowing they were His last moments to pour into His disciples before the cross. And what did He focus on? Not titles, not positions, but this: go and bear fruit. Not just any fruit, but fruit that remains. And fruit that remains will, by its very nature, go on to bear more fruit. That’s exponential growth—kingdom multiplication.

Then comes a sobering warning in John 15:5–6:

“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.”

Hear this—if we are not bearing fruit, we are cut off and burned. These are not my words; they are the words of Jesus. That truth should cause us to stop and examine our lives. Am I living in such a way that I am bearing fruit for the kingdom?

And if the answer is, “I’m not sure” or “I don’t think so,” the next question becomes—how do I start? The good news is that Jesus doesn’t just command us to bear fruit and then leave us to figure it out on our own. He tells us exactly how.

How to Abide

John 15:7–10 gives us the key:

“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be My disciples. As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. Abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.”

Jesus makes it simple—abide in Me. And when you do, you will bear fruit. It’s right there in the text. But that raises the question: What does it really mean to abide?

The Greek word for “abide” is meno—to remain, to endure, to stay in a place, state, or relationship. At its core, abiding means living in a continual, enduring relationship with Jesus. But He doesn’t leave us guessing at how to do it. In fact, He commands us in John 15:12–14:

“This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you.”

So how do we abide? By loving one another sacrificially—the same way Jesus has loved us. This is not a distant or casual love; it is a life-laid-down kind of love. It requires presence. It demands that we walk closely with our brothers and sisters in Christ, in the context of a real, visible, local body.

When we live this way—when our lives are poured out for others in the body of Christ—we are abiding. And when we abide, we bear fruit that remains. That kind of fruit leads us into a prayer life aligned with the heart of God, where we begin to ask for more fruit, more life, and more of His work—and He answers, using those prayers to accomplish His purposes.

Expecting Opposition

Jesus doesn’t sugarcoat the reality of the mission. In John 15:18–19 He says:

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

He tells us plainly—the world will hate the work of the gospel. And we need to expect it. This hatred comes in many forms: spiritual opposition from the enemy, resistance from the culture, and even hostility from religious circles. We are not to be surprised by it. In fact, He tells us these things in advance so we won’t be caught off guard or driven by fear.

Hard Things in a Fallen World

Not all difficulty is direct persecution. Some of it comes simply from living in a fallen world—where sickness, tragedy, loss, and death touch every life. These are painful realities. They test our faith. And in those moments, fear will try to slip in and take the driver’s seat. But we must not let fear lead us.

God wastes nothing. He uses even our deepest sorrows and hardest days to refine us, strengthen our trust in Him, and shape us into people who can walk with others in their pain. Romans 8:28 is still true—“We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.” That means every trial can become an opportunity for fruit to grow, for faith to deepen, and for Christ to be glorified.

Walking with the Broken

When revival comes—and I believe it will—we will be walking alongside people whose lives are deeply broken. Some will be battling addictions that lead to death. Others will be coming out of lifestyles that require deep repentance and transformation. This will not be clean or easy work. It will mean late-night phone calls, hard conversations, tears, and speaking the truth in love even when it’s not received well.

And make no mistake—opposition will come from unexpected places. Parents may accuse you of ruining their children because they’ve turned from their old life. Spouses may resent the radical change in their husband or wife because their hearts now belong first to Jesus. Some in religious circles may condemn your work, claiming it’s wrong, even while you are walking in obedience to God. And yes—wolves in sheep’s clothing will try to slip in, sowing discord and causing death. It is going to be hard and pain ridden without a doubt! Still DO NOT FEAR rise up in the Authority of Christ in you.

The Call to Step Up

Here’s the reality—our pastors will not have the capacity to personally disciple every new believer who will be flooding into the church when God moves. The need will be too great. That means you must be ready.

This is not the time to sit back and watch. It’s the time to rise up as the leaders and disciple-makers Jesus has called us to be. If you are in Christ, you have the Holy Spirit living inside you. You have been chosen for this moment. You are equipped to walk with the broken, to teach them to obey all He has commanded, and to model a life laid down in love.

The harvest is coming—and we must be ready to bring it in.