Someone once said, “In the absence of vision, pettiness prevails.” In other words, when someone is bored, he or she will start critiquing, judging, making problems and consuming time. Often they will go out for coffee with others who also lack vision and are doing nothing and together they will build mountains out of molehills. Apparently they have nothing better to do with their time and energy because they have no vision as to what the Lord is doing and thus what should be important.

This was never a problem in the early church. They had a vision – to take the life-changing Gospel into all the world and win the world for Jesus. This vision consumed them and was their focus on a daily basis. They gave their life for this vision. The Lord, when He first called the original disciples challenged them to “come and see.” And they did! But then, as He was ascending to heaven He gave them the Great Commission to “go into all the world and make disciples...” and, in reality, was saying to them “Go and die.” The vision He had instilled in these early church members was so powerful that they did just that. They went into their world, preached the Gospel of the Kingdom, and died for their faith.

Today, as Jesus shakes the church as it is so that it becomes what He originally designed it to be – He is imparting vision to His leaders who are and will be sharing it with the people they lead. It is a vision to transform the world (soon to be 7 billion people) one person at a time. He will be eliminating pettiness; pettiness will no longer prevail. He is calling His disciples to leave the pettiness behind, catch the bigger picture, and make a serious commitment to the Church that He is building. He is asking His disciples to “come and see” what He is about to do and then “go and die” fulfilling the vision.

In the church that man has built we call people to “come and see” and they do. Then they stay to eat and become spiritually fat. They get no exercise; they are not called to or allowed to do anything important because ministry belongs to the professionals. The cry of the man-made church is “don’t rock the boat” because we don’t want to upset anyone and maybe lose them.

In the church that Jesus is building – upon the foundations of the apostles and prophets – He is asking each and every disciple to “come and see” but to also enter a period of training when they take the spiritual food and use it to build muscle so that they can then “go and do” and in the process “go and die” for the only cause worth investing your life in – the Gospel of the Kingdom. The slogan you hear in the Church Jesus is building is, “Everyone out of the boat.”

Calling people to “leave the nets,” to prioritize God’s mission over their own, to live by faith, to take up their cross, to deny self, and to seek first God’s Kingdom and righteous life is what many are so desperate to hear. Oh, some will prefer to complain and be critical but as Jesus shakes the Church they will either change or He will cut them off as unproductive branches on the Vine. He is building His Church His way. As disciples we need to be listening closely to the leaders He has given to us to feed and guard us and allow the vision that He is imparting through them to become ours as well.

Jesus is asking us to leave behind the mundane and meaningless activities of religion as well as our own agenda, opinion, and pettiness – and to grab hold of the great things He is currently doing and become involved in the greatest challenge the Church has ever faced and walk into the powerful potential that lies in front of all those who are true disciples and willing to leave the pettiness behind and die daily as they take up their cross.