Don't retreat… John 17:15

And Jesus said, “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.”

God doesn’t want us off the battlefield…

What a lot of churches (and Christians) do, however, is retreat. They fall back to where they’re comfortable at, away from danger. We often have our own Christian schools, our own resorts, our own stores, and worse, our own neighborhoods. We even have churches that act more like compounds, placing themselves far outside of town to “get away” from “the world”. Is that how the early church operated?

Jesus continues in verse 18 with: “As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.”

How can we fight the enemy if we’re not willing to step on the battlefield? Here, Jesus is sending orders to the disciples. What we would later read about is how they engaged all the various people groups and cultures on their missionary journeys. And to top that off, they had a lot more to fear than we do today, given persecution was not the “mainstream media” but rather death itself.

I believe a church should be willing to step on the battlefield, because that’s where the victories are won! So many ministries are unwilling to go into the “bad parts of town” due to their reputation (and usually well-deserved) for crime and unsavory characters. Or possibly it’s a college campus where Biblical values are mocked and students are seemingly apathetic towards the idea of church. Some folks in the church world think it’s not worth the time, money, and effort to reach such people.

You’re likely not going to find 10% tithers of six figures incomes or “well-behaved” people. But, what you will find are prisoners of war that have been forced to fight for the enemy.

Let’s take ‘em back…