Mark 16:14-20: in context

The risen Jesus appears to the eleven, rebukes their unbelief, and commissions them: go into all the world and preach the good news to the whole creation. He promises signs will accompany those who believe, is taken up into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God. And then the account closes with a telling summary of what followed: they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word by the signs that followed.

The last line holds a truth easy to overlook but full of encouragement: the Lord working with them. Jesus had ascended, taken up into heaven, seated at the right hand of God; and we might think that his departure left the disciples alone to carry out the enormous task he had given them, to preach to all the world. But the text says otherwise: they went out and preached, and the Lord worked with them. Though ascended, Christ was not absent from his people or their mission; he worked alongside them, with them, confirming their word, active in their labor. They did not carry out the mission alone; the Lord was their partner in it. This is a truth for all who are given anything to do for God. We can feel that the work rests on us alone, that we must accomplish it in our own strength, that Christ, having given the command, has left us to it. But the promise is that the Lord works with us. The same Christ who gave the commission works alongside those who carry it out; he is not a distant commander who issues orders and withdraws, but a present partner who labors with his people. I am with you always, he promised, to the end of the age; and here we see it, the Lord working with them as they went. This changes how we approach whatever God gives us to do. We are not alone in it; the Lord works with us, and it is finally he who accomplishes what we could not. It is God who works in you, Paul says, both to will and to work. The disciples preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them, confirming the word; and the work God gives us, however large, we undertake not alone but in partnership with the Christ who works alongside us, whose presence and power make the work possible. We go; the Lord works with us; and that is the confidence in which any work for God is done.

When I am given something to do for God, do I feel that the work rests on me alone, to be accomplished in my own strength, as though Christ had given the command and left me to it, or can I take hold of the promise that the Lord works with those who go, a present partner in the labor, so that I undertake the work not alone but in partnership with the Christ who works alongside me?