Matthew 9.13 records, I’m after mercy, not religion. I’m here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders.

This ‘harsh’ word from God should cause us to pause and consider the importance of His message recorded for us so that we can know Him and do His will. God in Jesus is warning us, challenging us, seeking to penetrate our worldview so that we reconsider our ways and realign our priorities.

What does it mean to coddle? To make comfortable, pleasurable and enjoyable. This should not be the goal of the leaders of the church nor the goal of the attendees of Church. In our adoption by Christ, now made children of God, we have been left in the orphanage not because the Father doesn’t want us yet but because He wants us to invite more orphans into His family.

We who know Jesus as Savior are indeed children of God but we remain in the world though not of the world in order to invite those in the world to join us out of the world on that day we rise from the dead to see God and be welcomed into His family. The work of the Church, the mission of the Christian, is the Great commission – obedience to Jesus’ final command to go and make disciples of all people by teaching them to obey everything Jesus has commanded us.

We do this within our physical families, our neighborhoods, our workplaces and to all we come into contact wherever we go throughout the entire world. We support in prayer and finances those who leave this land to travel to other lands where the laborers are few so that we might extend even further God’s invitation to live with Him forever through Jesus the Savior of the world.

God’s goal is not our comfort in the church, God’s goal is the conversion of all men so that all men become part of the Church.