by Matthew Ellison – Sixteen:Fifteen, President and Church Missions Coach
Mark 16:14-15
“Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen.
And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.”
In Matthew’s Great Commission account, after Jesus appeared to them it says, “All eleven worshiped Him but some doubted.” Has it ever occurred to you that Jesus gives the Great Commission to doubters.
Mark’s account is similar, in that after rebuking the disciples for their unbelief, He gives them the Great Commission.
Remarkable. You’d expect it to say, the disciples trusted Him and then He gave them the Great Commission. No, He gives the Great Commission to doubters, to men with issues, to men who didn’t have it all together.
Don’t miss what is so important about this — it is not what it says about these doubters, it is what it says about Him. Jesus is attracted not to strength, but to weakness. He chooses the foolish things of this world to confound the wise; the things that are not, to nullify the things that are.
Do you struggle? Are you someone who does not have it all together? Perfect, you are qualified to be a part of the Great Commission. And when Jesus uses you, people will marvel, just like the religious leaders did in Acts 4 when they saw the courage of Peter and John:
“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.” Acts 4:13
