Mission: One More For Jesus

Today’s Bible Reading – Matthew 28:16-20

Recommended Reading – Psalm 86, Proverbs 15:14, Mark 16

My father was a minister for over fifty years, serving mostly in small, rural churches. He was a simple preacher, but he was a man with a mission. His favorite activity was taking teams of volunteers overseas to build church buildings for small congregations. In his lifetime, Dad built over 150 churches around the world.

In 1999, my father died of cancer. In the final week of his life the disease kept him awake in a semi-conscious state nearly twenty-four hours a day. As he dreamed, he’d talk out loud about what he was dreaming. Sitting by his bedside, I learned a lot about my dad by just listening to his dreams. He relived one church building project after another.

One night near the end, while my wife, my niece, and I were by his bedside, Dad suddenly became very active and tried to get out of bed. Of course, he was too weak, and my wife insisted he lay back down. But he persisted in trying to get out of bed, so my wife finally asked, “Jimmy, what are you trying to do?” He replied,

God to save one more for Jesus! Got to save one more for Jesus! Got to save one more for Jesus!

He began to repeat that phrase over and over.

During the next hour, he said the phrase probably a hundred times. “Got to save one more for Jesus!” As I sat by his bed with tears flowing down my cheeks, I bowed my head to thank God for my dad’s faith. At that moment Dad reached out and placed his frail hand on my head and said, as if commissioning me, “Save one more for Jesus! Save one more for Jesus!”

I intend for that to be the theme of the rest of my life. I invite you to consider it as a focus for your life, too, because nothing will make a greater difference for eternity. If you want to be used by God, you must care about what God cares about: what He cares about most is the redemption of the people He made. He wants His lost children found! Nothing matters more to God; the Cross proves that. I pray that you will always be on the lookout to reach “one more for Jesus” so that when you stand before God one day, you can say, “Mission Accomplished”

– Rick Warren

Excerpted with permission from, NIV Men’s Devotional Bible, 2012.

* * *

Your Turn

If you are honest with yourself, what do you care most about? How does this story impact you? What can you do to begin living a life in which you can say, “Mission accomplished!”?

Join the conversation on our blog! We would love to hear from you about experiencing freedom in Christ! ~ Devotionals Daily