Total Member Involvement [A Special Appeal for Us] - Pastor Ted Wilson

In this episode, Pastor Ted Wilson talks about total member involvement, a global campaign of the Adventist church wherein every member is encouraged to get actively involved in ministry and mission.

In Luke 10, a lawyer challenged Jesus, asking what he must do to inherit eternal life. The answer was to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, love your neighbor as yourself."

When the lawyer asked who that neighbor was, Jesus told him about the story of the good Samaritan, who encountered a man attacked by robbers as he was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. 

A priest saw the man but passed by. Another religious leader came and saw him but passed by, too. But when the Samaritan came, he took pity of him, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

When Jesus asked who among those three men was a good neighbour, the lawyer said it was "the one who had mercy on him," referring to the Samaritan.

The Samaritan represents Jesus, Who puts on us and clothes us with His robe of righteousness. We are to follow His footsteps by doing medical missionary work in comprehensive health ministry, helping people physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually.

With this, Elder Ted quotes from Ellen White’s book, The Desire of Ages, page 504, saying, "The lesson is no less needed in the world today than when it fell from the lips of Jesus. Selfishness and cold formality have well-nigh extinguished the fire of love, and dispelled the graces that should make fragrant the character. Many who profess His name have lost sight of the fact that Christians are to represent Christ. Unless there is practical self-sacrifice for the good of others, in the family circle, in the neighbourhood, in the church, and wherever we may be, then whatever our profession, we are not Christians."

May God bless us as we engage in total member involvement, following Jesus’ footsteps, doing something for Him and others, and pointing them to the Master Physician and Teacher and His soon second coming.