A core value of the Christian and Missionary Alliance is expressed as “All of Jesus for All the World”.  There is a lot wrapped up in that statement. 

First, our message is all of Jesus.  We want to communicate a Biblically accurate message about Who Jesus is, what He came to do, and what He requires of those who follow Him.  We cannot present Him as one option among many.  He did not give us that leeway.  We cannot present the gospel as an easy way to get to heaven that doesn’t require any changes until we get there. 

Jesus said, “If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.  For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will find it.  What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?” (Matt. 16:24-26 NIV).  To be saved we must surrender completely to Jesus and Him alone.  There are not many different ways to God.  We are not saved just by saying the right words in a prayer.  That’s not all of Jesus.  It's not an accurate representation of Who He is.

The other part of the statement is that we exist to take the message of Jesus and the gospel to all the world, including the most remote and unreached corners of the globe.  Anywhere there are people who haven’t heard about the gospel, we are to get the message to them.  Acts 1:8 says that we are to be His “witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth,” (ESV).  He was talking to people who were in Jerusalem at the time, but His command applies to all believers everywhere and at all times. 

We are to get the gospel to the people who live close to us – in our own city, neighborhoods, schools and families.  That’s our Jerusalem.  We are also to take the gospel to people who are like us but live a little further away.  That’s our Judea.  Then we are to make sure that people who are different from us also hear the gospel.  The Samaritans were slightly different from the Jews.  They looked different.  They had a different culture, race, and religion, and they ate strange foods.  They also didn’t like the Jews and the Jews didn’t like them.  The ends of the earth were people who lived far away and didn’t have anything in common with the men and women Jesus first spoke these words to.  The application should be obvious.  We exist to make sure the gospel gets to all people, everywhere – those just like us and those not at all like us. 

There is one more piece to Jesus’ statement in Acts 1:8.  We are each responsible for all four locations and types of people.  We can’t just send money to reach those on the other side of the world and ignore the people in our city.  Nope, we are each to do whatever we can to reach people in each of those quadrants.  It’s a big task, but we serve a bigger God and He promised to be with us as we do it.