Jesus commissioned His church to preach the gospel, leading to people being made His disciples (Matthew 28:18-20). The wording of the commission shows that people will be called to baptism. That is true today as it has been for the last 2000 years.

Our world like success, including "numerical success" – more, better, etc. Those who are preaching the gospel are sometimes disappointed that there aren't "better" results for their efforts. There are only relatively few who really take the message to heart. We ask ourselves continually how we can make our message more relevant, attractive, clearer or whatever it might need to be so more people come to us.

Our savior Jesus Christ walked the earth as a Jew. He lived among the Jews, kept the Sabbath and the Feast days just like His fellow Jews, went to the synagogue on the Sabbath, etc. He knew the scriptures and was a talented teacher. He understood His people and their culture. It seems obvious that Jesus was a Jew to the Jews, to use the apostle Paul's wording.

You would have thought that Jesus would have had more "success" in preaching His message of the kingdom of God, but after three and a half years of preaching He had only 120 disciples.

Just a few hours prior to His death Jesus told His disciples very important: "Remember the word that I said to you, A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also" (Johannes 15,20).

No matter how effective and relevant our message of the kingdom of God might be, there will be people – a lot of them! – who will reject it. If the vast majority of Jesus' own countrymen rejected His perfect example and perfect preaching, then there will be many people today who will reject our imperfect example and our imperfect preaching. But we should not be discouraged or deterred from preaching the message. We should be diligent in giving "food in due season" (Matthew 24:45-46).

We can truly rejoice that we are able to understand the message ourselves: "At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight" (Matthew 11:25-26).

With these thoughts I wish everyone a rewarding Sabbath!