Obedience to God, “thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” is our fourth powerful motivation.

And even if this were the only one, it would be more than enough to drive us forward. We must speak to our people about Yeshua because we have been commanded to do so. 

Paul’s words apply to us:

“For if I preach the gospel that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (2 Cor 9:16)

Cannot such a motivation drive us forward?  Of course it can! And beyond that, should we not be passionate to “bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of His name” among all the people of Israel, as was Paul’s passion for the nations? (Ro 1:5, 16:26)

Such a mighty missional motivation roars at the curbside like a Maserati, its door open, waiting only for us to get in the driver’s seat to go zero to sixty in five seconds flat. By comparison, the find-heaven-avoid-hell motivation seems like a donkey, energized by a carrot and a stick! I may be taking away our donkey, but our Father in heaven has given us the keys to the Maserati. Let’s take her out on the road!! *

* Johannes Verkuyl, writing thirty years ago, reached similar conclusions, naming six motivations for mission, including all four I identified. His list, in order: obedience; love, mercy and pity; doxology; the eschatological motive (where he makes mention of the Lord’s Prayer!); haste; and the personal motive— the arousing of ourselves through arousing others. Verkuyl was the pre-eminent missiologist of the mid- twentieth century (Contemporary Missiology: An Introduction. [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978]), 164- 168.