Acts 8 NLT
A great wave of persecution began that day, sweeping over the church in Jerusalem; and all the believers except the apostles were scattered through the regions of Judea and Samaria. (Some devout men came and buried Stephen with great mourning.) But Saul was going everywhere to destroy the church. He went from house to house, dragging out both men and women to throw them into prison. But the believers who were scattered preached the Good News about Jesus wherever they went. (1-4)
I was a young insurance salesman in a Zig Ziglar conference when I first heard the Stephen Covey quote, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” I guess the application of that quote can vary based on what you think “the main thing” is. For true Christians, the main thing is the very thing that those early believers were doing. We have a job to do and that job is to spread the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ far and wide.
The fulfillment of the Great Commission and the responsibility we have to go to the ends of the earth to expand God’s Kingdom are things that each one of us bears on our shoulders. Whether we are staying home, preaching to our neighbors, and supporting those who go to the ends of the earth, or whether we are the ones that cross-cultural, geographic, and linguistic boundaries to take the gospel around the world, we are all called to be involved in the “main thing.”
What is most amazing to me is that those early believers did not allow their current problems to keep them from doing the “main thing.” Instead, persecution and suffering simply fueled their resolve to share the good news, and the fact that they were running for their lives only gave them opportunities to preach the gospel in more places. In today’s world, there is a tendency to “circle the wagons” and take care of our own instead of doing the “main thing.” We are facing unprecedented challenges like COVID, political unrest, and rising secularism. These challenges are not an excuse for abandoning the mission; instead, more than ever we need to “keep the main thing the main thing.”
