A great conference

Today ended our annual Fall Renewal Conference at Harvest Church in Dothan, Ala. Dr. Bill Ury preached today from Matthew 28:18b-20: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

It's a very familiar verse to most of us. It's the Great Commission that Jesus gives all of us. However, Dr. Ury explained it in a way I've never heard before. When Jesus says "go and make disciples," I've always taken that as a command, and it is. However, He's not just saying go and save the world ... see you later ... have a nice life. The translation of the word "go" means "going." As Dr. Ury said, that doesn't make sense in English. "Therefore going." It's not grammatically correct.

Jesus is saying to all of us, just like he said to His disciples, "come on, go with me." Notice Jesus said all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him. The Father gave Him that authority. Jesus also says He is with us always. We can't reach our city, our region, our nation, our world without Jesus. When we do things in our own power we fail. When we do it with Jesus, we are always successful. He has been given all authority and He wants us to go with Him and reach the world.

It was a great message. All five of his messages were great this weekend. As Pastor Ralph said this morning, this is probably the most challenging conference we've had at Harvest; the most where we were challenged by God's Word.

It was an awesome conference, and I thank Pastor Ralph and everyone on staff at Harvest for this wonderful conference. Thanks for putting it together, for bringing in Dr. Ury, and for everyone who did everything behind the scenes to make the conference such a great success. I want to especially thank Cheryl Hidle and the entire Harvest Praise Team. Y'all were awesome and led us into the presence of God during every service. You always do every week. Ministering three straight days and for five services is a lot. You are very much appreciated. And, thanks to Dr. Ury for challenging us with God's word. You were a tremendous blessing to Martha and me, and to everyone who attended.

Now the key is implementing everything we learned and were challenged with during the conference. If we don't do that then we wasted our time this weekend. Martha and I are excited about putting God's word into action in our lives.