Showing posts with label Hope. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hope. Show all posts

Thursday, October 22, 2020

I, too, am going back home today... - The little Prince


He made no answer to my question, but he added: "I, too, am going back home today..." Then, sadly−−

"It is much farther... it is much more difficult..." I realised clearly that something extraordinary was happening. I was holding him close in my arms as if he were a little child; and yet it seemed to me that he was rushing headlong toward an abyss from which I could do nothing to restrain him... His look was very serious, like some one lost far away. "I have your sheep. And I have the sheep's box. And I have the muzzle..." And he gave me a sad smile. I waited a long time. I could see that he was reviving little by little. "Dear little man," I said to him, "you are afraid..." He was afraid, there was no doubt about that. But he laughed lightly. "I shall be much more afraid this evening..." Once again I felt myself frozen by the sense of something irreparable. And I knew that I could not bear the thought of never hearing that laughter any more. For me, it was like a spring of fresh water in the desert. "Little man," I said, "I want to hear you laugh again." But he said to me: "Tonight, it will be a year... my star, the

And he laughed again. Then he quickly became serious: "Tonight−− you know... do not come," said the little prince. "I shall not leave you," I said. "I shall look as if I were suffering. I shall look a little as if I were dying. It is like that. Do not come to see that. It is not worth the trouble..." "I shall not leave you." But he was worried. "I tell you−− it is also because of the snake. He must not bite you. Snakes−− they are malicious creatures. This one might bite you just for fun..." "I shall not leave you." But a thought came to reassure him: "It is true that they have no more poison for a second bite."

That night I did not see him set out on his way. He got away from me without making a sound. When I succeeded in catching up with him he was walking along with a quick and resolute step. He said to me merely: "Ah! You are there..." And he took me by the hand. But he was still worrying. "It was wrong of you to come. You will suffer. I shall look as if I were dead; and that will not be true..." I said nothing. "You understand... it is too far. I cannot carry this body with me. It is too heavy." I said nothing. "But it will be like an old abandoned shell. There is nothing sad about old shells..." I said nothing. 

He was a little discouraged. But he made one more effort: "You know, it will be very nice. I, too, shall look at the stars. All the stars will be wells with a rusty pulley. All the stars will pour out fresh water for me to drink..." I said nothing. "That will be so amusing! You will have five hundred million little bells, and I shall have five hundred million springs of fresh water..." And he too said nothing more, because he was crying... "Here it is. Let me go on by myself."  

And he sat down, because he was afraid. Then he said, again: "You know−− my flower... I am responsible for her. And she is so weak! She is so naïve! She has four thorns, of no use at all, to protect herself against all the world..." I too sat down, because I was not able to stand up any longer. "There now−− that is all..." He still hesitated a little; then he got up. He took one step. I could not move. There was nothing but a flash of yellow close to his ankle. He remained motionless for an instant. He did not cry out. He fell as gently as a tree falls. There was not even any sound, because of the sand.


The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint−Exupery

Friday, October 16, 2020

Those Crazy Gringos - Bernie May

 


“I remember the Day Mr. Townsend came into my office in 1945. He presented the most ridiculous plan I had ever heard.

He wanted to go into the jungle with a group of linguists. They were going to learn the languages of the people, form alphabets teach the people how to read and translate the Bible into those languages. He wanted my blessing on this impossible project. Our conversation went like this:


Mr.Townsend, who is going to do all this work?

José Jiménez Borja

It will be done by trained linguist— young men and women with college degrees who are willing to spend their lives among the indigenous peoples.


This is a difficult task. How many are willing to go?

None yet. But when I go back to the U.S . and challenge them, many will volunteer.


The jungle is impossible. How will you get those people out to the villages?

I plan to use airplanes to land on the rivers and airstrips that can be cleared in the jungle.


How many planes do you have?

None, But when I share the need, God will give us enough planes.


Who will fly these planes?

Hundreds of young people, seasoned pilots and mechanics will volunteer.


How many pilots and mechanics do you now have?

None, but god will send them along.


There is much disease in the jungle how will you stay healthy?

We’ll have clinics staffed by doctor’s and nurses.


How many doctors and nurses do you have?

None, but God will supply them.


Who will finance all this? The U.S. government? A wealthy foundation?

No. I’ll go home and tell the people of the United States about this plan. God will supply. All the workers will raise their own support.


At this I stared at the strange man and told him, When all that comes to pass, come back to me and I will bless you.

He got up, gave me a big hug, and said I’ll be back soon.


“when Mr. Townsend walked out of the door, I turned to my secretary and said, “allá va el gringo más loco que jamás he vito’ ( there goes the craziest gringo I’ve ever seen in my life.)

Reporting on interview between Jiménez Borja an assistant to the Peruvian Minister of Education at the 25 Wycliffe Anniversary and Cameron Townsend


Thursday, October 01, 2020

Mueller Thoughts on ...

 

[When he almost lost his daughter] My dear wife and I were at peace. Why? Because we did not love her? We loved her intensely. But we were satisfied with God, whatever he might do. (Vol. 2. p. 746) Pastor George Mueller

The Lord never lays more on us, in the way of chastisement, than our state of heart makes needful; so that whilst He smites with the one hand, He supports with the other. (Vol. 1, p. 61) Pastor George Mueller

For the first four years after my conversion I made no progress, because I neglected the Bible. But when I regularly read on through the whole with reference to my own heart and soul, I directly made progress. Then my peace and joy continued more and more. Now I have been doing this for 47 years. I have read through the whole Bible about 100 times and I always find it fresh when I begin again. Thus my peace and joy have increased more and more. (Vol. 2, p. 834) Pastor George Mueller

According to my judgement the most important point to be attended to is this: above all things see to it that your souls are happy in the Lord. Other things may press upon you, the Lord's work may even have urgent claims upon your attention, but I deliberately repeat, it is of supreme and paramount importance that you should seek above all things to have your souls truly happy in God Himself! Day by day seek to make this the most important business of your life. (Vol. 2, p. 731). Pastor George Mueller

In what way shall we attain to this settled happiness of soul? How shall we learn to enjoy God? How obtain such an all-sufficient soul-satisfying portion in him as shall enable us to let go the things of this world as vain and worthless in comparison? I answer, This happiness is to be obtained through the study of the Holy Scriptures. God has therein revealed Himself unto us in the face of Jesus Christ. (Vol. 2, p. 731) Pastor George Mueller


Monday, May 06, 2019

We shall Fight - Winston Churchill 1940

We are assured that novel methods will be adopted, and when we see the originality of malice, the ingenuity of aggression, which our enemy displays, we may certainly prepare ourselves for every kind of novel stratagem and every kind of brutal and treacherous maneuver. I think that no idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered and viewed with a searching, but at the same time, I hope, with a steady eye. We must never forget the solid assurances of sea power and those which belong to air power if it can be locally exercised. . . . . 


 Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.


Winston Churchill to Parliament in 1940

Monday, June 26, 2017

by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts - Madeleine L'Engle


“We draw people to Christ not by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.”


― Madeleine L'Engle

Monday, January 30, 2017

Shoe Dog, Phil Knight

“It seems wrong to call it ‘business’. It seems wrong to throw all those hectic days and sleepless nights, all those magnificent triumphs and desperate struggles, under that bland, generic banner: business. What we were doing felt like so much more. Each new day brought fifty new problems, fifty tough decisions that needed to be made, right now, and we were always acutely aware that one rash move, one wrong decision could be the end. The margin for error was forever getting narrower, while the stakes were forever creeping higher – and none of us wavered in the belief that ‘stakes’ didn’t mean ‘money’. For some, I realize, business is the all-out-pursuit of profits, period, full stop, but for us business was no more about making money than being human is about making blood. Yes, the human body needs blood. It needs to manufacture red and white cells and platelets and redistribute them evenly, smoothly, to all the right places, on time, or else. But that day-to-day business of the human body isn’t our mission as human beings. It’s a basic process that enables our higher aims, and life always strives to transcend the basic processes of living – and at some point in the late 1970’s, I did, too. I redefined winning, expanded it beyond my original definition of not losing, of merely staying alive. That was no longer enough to sustain me, or my company. We wanted, as all great businesses do, to contribute, and we dared to say so aloud. When you make something, when you improve something, when you deliver something, when you add some new thing or service to the lives of strangers, making them happier, or healthier, or safer, or better, and when you do it all crisply and efficiently, smartly, the way everything should be done but so seldom is – you’re participating more fully in the whole grand human drama. More than simply alive, you’re helping others to live more fully, and if that’s business, all right, call me a businessman.”

Maybe it will Grow On me.

Phil Knight Shoe Dog Pg 352 & 353

Saturday, June 14, 2014

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Christian Hedonism by John Piper Desiring God Ch 9


Most men are not satisfied with the permanent output of their
lives. Nothing can wholly satisfy the life of Christ within his
followers except the adoption of Christ's purpose toward the
world he came to redeem. Fame, pleasure and riches are but
husks and ashes in contrast with the boundless and abiding joy
of working with God for the fulfillment of his eternal plans. The
men who are putting everything into Christ's undertaking are
getting out of life its sweetest and most priceless rewards.
J. Campbell White ( 1909)
Secretary of the Laymen's Missionary Movement





Surely there can be no greater joy
than that of saving souls.
Lottie Moon (1887)
"Patron Saint of Baptist Missions"




Chapter 9

Missions:
The Battle Cry of Christian Hedonism


Did Moses or Paul Retire?
Most men don't die of old age, they die of retirement. I read somewhere that half of the men retiring in the state of New York die within two years. Save your life and you'll lose it. Just like other drugs, other psychological addictions, retirement is a virulent disease, not a blessing.1
These are the words of Ralph Winter, founder of the United States Center for World Mission. His life and strategy have been a constant summons to young and old that the only way to find life is to give it away. He is one of my heroes. He says so many things that Christian Hedonists ought to say (although he wishes I would not use the word "hedonist")!
Not only does he call retired Christians to quit throwing their lives away on the golf course when they could be giving themselves to the global cause of Christ, but he also calls students to go hard after the fullest and deepest joy of life. In his little pamphlet, "Say Yes to Missions," he says, "Jesus, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame . . . To follow him is your choice. You're warned! But don't forget the joy."

In fact, in all my reading outside the Bible over the past fifteen years, the greatest source of affirmation for my emerging Christian Hedonism has been from missionary literature, especially biographies. And those who have suffered most seem to state the truth most unashamedly. I will tell you some of my findings in this chapter.

But first, back to the issue of retirement. Winter asks, "Where in the Bible do they see that? Did Moses retire? Did Paul retire? Peter? John? Do military officers retire in the middle of a war?"2 Good questions. If we try to answer them in the case of the apostle Paul, we bump right into a definition of "missions" which is what we need here at the beginning of this chapter.

As Paul writes his letter to the Romans, he has been a missionary for about twenty years. He was between twenty and forty years old (that's the range implied in the Greek word for "young man" in Acts 7:58) when he was converted. We may guess, then, that he was perhaps around fifty as he writes this great letter.

That may sound young to us. But remember two things: In those days, life expectancy was less, and Paul had led an incredibly stressful life-five times whipped with thirty-nine lashes, three times beaten with rods, once stoned, three times shipwrecked, constantly on the move and constantly in danger (2 Corinthians 11:24-29).

By our contemporary standards he should perhaps be "letting up" and planning for retirement. But in Romans 15 he says he is planning to go to Spain! In fact, the reason for writing to the Romans was largely to enlist their support for this great new frontier mission. Paul is not about to retire. Vast areas of the empire are unreached, not to mention the regions beyond ! So he says,
Now, since I no longer have any room for work in these regions, and since I have longed for many years to come to you, I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain, and to be sped on my journey there by you, once I have enjoyed your company for a little. (Romans 15:23-24)

Paul was probably killed in Rome before he could ever fulfill his dream of preaching in Spain. But one thing is certain: He was cut down in combat, not in retirement. He was moving on to the frontier instead of settling down to bask in his amazing accomplishments. Right here we learn the meaning of missions.


The Meaning of Frontier Missions

How could Paul possibly say in Romans 15:23, "I no longer have any room for work in these regions"? There were thousands of unbelievers left to be converted in Judea and Samaria and Syria and Asia and Macedonia and Achaia. That is obvious from Paul's instructions to the churches on how to relate to unbelievers. But Paul has no room for work!

The explanation is given in verses 19-21,

From Jerusalem and as far round as Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ, thus making it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on another man's foundation, but as it is written,
They shall see who have never been told of him, and they shall understand who have never heard of him.
Paul's missionary strategy is to preach where nobody has preached before. This is what we mean by Frontier Missions. Paul had a passion to go where there were no established churches-that meant Spain.

What is amazing in these verses is that Paul can say he has fully preached (literally: "fulfilled") the gospel from Jerusalem in southern Palestine to Illyricum northwest of Greece! To understand this is to understand the meaning of Frontier Missions. Frontier Missions is very different from domestic evangelism. There were thousands of people yet to be converted from Jerusalem to Illyricum. But the task of Frontier Missions was finished. Paul's job of "planting" was done and would now be followed by someone else's "watering" ( 1 Corinthians 3:6).

So when I speak of missions in this chapter, I generally refer to the Christian church's ongoing effort to carry on Paul's strategy: preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and planting his church among groups of people who have not yet been reached.




The Need for Frontier Missions

My assumption is that people without the gospel are without hope, because only the gospel can free them from their sin. Therefore missions is utterly essential in the life of a loving church, though not all Christians believe this.

Walbert Buhlmann, a Catholic missions secretary in Rome, spoke for many mainline denominational leaders when he said,
In the past we had the so-called motive of saving souls. We were convinced that if not baptized, people in the masses would go to hell. Now, thanks be to God, we believe that all people and all religions are already living in the grace and love of God and will be saved by God's mercy.3

Sister Emmanuelle of Cairo, Egypt, said, "Today we don't talk about conversion any more. We talk about being friends. My job is to prove that God is love and to bring courage to these people."4

It is natural to want to believe in a God who saves all men no matter what they believe or do. But it is not biblical.5 Essential teachings of Scripture must be rejected to believe in such a God. Listen to the words of the Son of God when he called the apostle Paul into missionary service:
I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and bear witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from the people and from the Gentiles-to whom I send you to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. (Acts 26:16-18)


This is an empty commission if in fact the eyes of the nations don't need to be opened, and they don't need to turn from darkness to light, and don't need to escape the power of Satan to come to God, and don't need the forgiveness of sins that comes only by faith in Christ who is preached by the Lord's ambassadors. Paul did not give his life as a missionary to Asia and Macedonia and Greece and Rome and Spain to inform people they were already saved. He gave himself that "by any means [he] might save some" ( 1 Corinthians 9:22).

So when Paul's message about Christ was rejected (for example, at Antioch by the Jews), he said, "Since you thrust the word of God from you and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles" (Acts 13 :46). At stake in missionary outreach to unreached peoples is
eternal life! Conversion to Christ from any and every other allegiance is precisely the aim. "For there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).

The Justice of God in Judgment and Salvation

God is not unjust. No one will be condemned for not believing a message they have never heard. Those who have never heard the gospel will be judged by their failure to own up to the light of God's grace and power in nature and in their own conscience. This is the point of Romans 1:20-21.
Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely his eternal power and deity, have been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse: for although they knew God they did not glorify him as God or give thanks to him.
Apart from the special, saving grace of God, people are dead in sin, darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God and hardened in heart (Ephesians 2:1, 4:18). And the means God has ordained to administer that special saving grace is the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.


I am a debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish; so I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel: It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. (Romans 1:14-16)

The Effects of Universalism on Missions

The notion that people are saved without hearing the gospel has wreaked havoc in the missions effort of denominations and churches that minimize the biblical teaching of human lostness without Christ. Between 1953 and 1980, the overseas missionary force of mainline Protestant churches of North America decreased from 9,844 to 2,813, while the missionary force of evangelical Protestants, who take this biblical teaching more seriously, increased by more than 200 percent. The Christian and Missionary Alliance, for example, with its 200,000 members, supports forty percent more missionaries than the United Methodist Church with its 9.5 million members. There is amazing missionary power in taking seriously all the Word of God.6

Many Christians thought the end of the colonial era after the Second World War was also the end of foreign missions. The gospel had more or less penetrated every country in the world. But what we have become keenly aware of in the last generation is that the command of Jesus to make disciples of "every nation" does not refer to political nations as we know them today. Nor does it mean every individual, as though the great commission could not be completed until every individual were made a disciple.

What Are People Groups?

We are increasingly aware that the intention of God is for every "people group" to be evangelized-that a thriving church be planted in every group. No one can exactly define what a people group is. But we get a rough idea from passages like Revelation 7:9.
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no man could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb ....
It is almost impossible to draw precise distinctions between "nations," "tribes," "peoples" and "tongues." But what is clear is that God's redemptive purpose is not complete just because there are disciples of Jesus in all twentieth-century "nations," i.e., political states. Within those countries are thousands of tribes and castes and subcultures and languages.

So the remaining task of Frontier Missions no longer is conceived mainly in geographic terms. The question now is, "Where are the unreached people groups?"7

Since the first edition of Desiring God appeared in 1986 there has been tremendous progress in the cooperation of mission agencies, denominations and churches in the tasks of researching and evangelizing the unreached peoples of the world. There is now basic agreement that "of the 12,000 known ethno-linguistic peoples in the world, 10,000 already have a church-planting movement in their midst. . . . [At the end of 1994, of the 2,000 groups remaining ] only 1,000 have virtually no penetration. . . . Today we have a target list of least-evangelized peoples that is being revised each year to reflect greater accuracy. The 100 largest of these peoples . . . represent almost two billion people."8 They are found mainly in the Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Animist peoples of the so-called 10/40 Window.9 It seems to me that Rick Wood is not overstating things when he says, "Never before in Christian history has there been such a large movement with so many sincere believers, churches denominations and agencies working together toward the common goal of a church for every people. This level of global cooperation is unprecedented."10


Missionsis Finishable, But Not Evangelism

To keep us sober in our estimates of the remaining task of reaching the unreached people groups of the world, Ralph Winter reminds us of two facts.

First, evangelism can never be finished, but missions can be finished. The reason is this: missions has the unique task of crossing language and culture barriers to penetrate a people group and establish a church movement; but evangelism is the ongoing task of sharing the gospel among people within the same culture. This fact allows us to talk realistically about "closure" -- the completion of the missionary task, even if there may be millions of people yet to be won to Christ in all the people groups of the world where the church has been planted.

The second fact Winter reminds us of is that there are probably more people groups than the ones listed among the 12,000 ethno-linguistic groups mentioned above. He illustrates by pointing out that tribal divisions along the lines of mutually unintelligible dialects may vary depending on whether the dialect is spoken or written. So, for example, Wycliffe Bible translators may detect that a translation of the Bible is readable in a dialect covering a wide area, while Gospel Recordings may determine that seven or more different audio recordings are needed because of the audible distinctions in the larger dialect.

Thus Winter asks, which level of people group did Jesus have in mind when he said, "This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the peoples, and then the end will come" (Matthew 24:14)? His answer: "We'll find out . . . the closer we get to the situation. In the meantime we need to live with guesses. . . . We can only learn more as we go! And at this hour greater human resources are looming into view than have ever been available to the unfinished task!"11

The point of these observations is that the job of Frontier Missions is not complete. In fact the vast majority of missionaries are working on "fields" where the church has been planted for decades. The need for frontier missionaries is great. The Lord's command to disciple the remaining unreached groups is still in force. And my burden in this chapter is to kindle a desire in your heart to be part of the last chapter of the greatest story in the world.


Dramatic Growth!
There are historical as well as theological reasons for hope that the task of world missions is finishable...

Ralph Winter has observed that the drop from 11 to 7 (62%) between 1980 and 1989 (in the second column) is equivalent to the drop from 360 to 220 (62%) in the first 900 years of church history! The two measurements in the second and fourth columns, and the trends that they reveal, are two of the most hopeful insights in the study of church growth. Even though there is an ongoing and urgent need for more frontier missionaries to penetrate the final unreached peoples with the gospel, it seems that the momentum of closure is accelerating. In addition to the iron-clad promise of Jesus in Matthew 24:14, that the gospel will penetrate all the peoples, there is the empirical evidence that this is in fact happening, and at an increasing rate. It is "A Finishable Task"!
Becoming World Christians
I would like to believe that many of you who read this chapter are on the brink of setting a new course of commitment to missions: some a new commitment to go to a frontier people, others a new path of education, others a new use of your vocation in a culture less saturated by the church, others a new lifestyle and a new pattern of giving and praying and reading. I want to push you over the brink. I would like to make the cause of missions so attractive that you will no longer be able to resist its magnetism.
Not that I believe everyone will become a missionary, or even should become one. But I pray that every reader of this book might become what David Bryant calls a World Christian-that you would reorder your life around God's global cause. In his inspiring book In the Gap, Bryant defines World Christians as that group of Christians who say,


We want to accept personal responsibility for reaching some of earth's unreached, especially from among the billions at the widest end of the Gap who can only be reached through major new efforts by God's people Among every people-group where there is no vital, evangelizing Christian community there should be one, there must be one, there shall be one. Together we want to help make this happen.16

The Rich Young Ruler
The biblical basis for the missions commitment of a Christian Hedonist is found in the story of the rich young ruler (Mark 10:17-31)
As [Jesus] was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: `Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother."'
And he said to him, "Teacher, all these I have observed from my youth." And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said to him, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." At that saying his countenance fell, and he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions.
And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!" And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, "Then who can be saved?" Jesus looked at them and said, "With men it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God." Peter began to say to him, "Look, we have left everything and followed you." Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. But many that are first will be last, and the last first."

This story contains at least two great incentives for being totally dedicated to the cause of Frontier Missions.
With Men It Is Impossible, but Not with God
First, in Mark 10:25-27 Jesus said to his disciples, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
And they were astonished and said to him, "Then who can be saved?" Jesus looked at them and said, `With men it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God."

This is one of the most encouraging missionary conversations in the Bible. What missionary has not looked on his work and said, "It's impossible!"? To which Jesus agrees, "Yes, with men it is impossible." No mere human being can liberate another human being from the enslaving power of the love of money. The rich young ruler went away sorrowful because the bondage to things cannot be broken by man. With man it is impossible! And therefore missionary work, which is simply liberating the human heart from bondage to allegiances other than Christ, is impossible-with men! If God were not in charge in this affair, doing the humanly impossible, the missionary task would be hopeless. Who but God can raise the spiritually dead and give them an ear for the gospel? "Even when we were dead through our trespasses, God made us alive together with Christ" (Ephesians 2:5). The great missionary hope is that when the gospel is preached in the power of the Holy Spirit, God himself does what man cannot do-he creates the faith which saves.
The call of God does what the call of man can't. It raises the dead. It creates spiritual life. It is like the call of Jesus to Lazarus in the tomb, "Come forth!" (John 11:43). We can waken someone from sleep with our call, but God's call can summon into being things that are not (Romans 4:17).
God's call is irresistible in the sense that it can overcome all resistance. It is infallibly effective according to God's purpose-so much so that Paul can say, "Those whom God called he also justified." In other words, God's call is so effectual that it infallibly creates the faith through which a person is justified. All the called are justified. But none is justified without faith (Romans 5 :1 ) . So the call of God cannot fail in its intended effect. It irresistibly secures the faith that justifies.
This is what man cannot do. It is impossible. Only God can take out the heart of stone (Ezekiel 36: 26) . Only God can draw people to the Son (John 6:44,65) . Only God can open the heart so that it gives heed to the gospel (Acts 16:14). Only the Good Shepherd knows his sheep by name. He calls them and they follow. The sovereign grace of God, doing the humanly impossible, is the great missionary hope.


Two Kinds of Self Love
When Peter blurted out that he had sacrificed everything, he had not thought as deeply as David Brainerd and David Livingstone. As a young missionary to the Indians of New England, Brainerd wrestled with the issue of self-love and self-denial. On January 24, 1744, he wrote in his diary,
In the evening, I was unexpectedly visited by a considerable number of people, with whom I was enabled to converse profitably of divine things. Took pains to describe the difference between a regular and irregular self love; the one consisting with a supreme love to God, but the other not; the former uniting God's glory and the soul's happiness that they become one common interest, but the latter disjoining and separating God's glory and man's happiness, seeking the larger with a neglect of the former. Illustrated this by that genuine love that is founded between the sexes, which is diverse from that which is wrought up towards a person only by rational argument, or hope of self-interest.20
Brainerd knew in his soul that in seeking to live for the glory of God, he was loving himself! He knew there was no ultimate sacrifice going on, though he was dying of tuberculosis. Yet he knew that Jesus condemned some form of self-love and commended some form of self-denial. So he endorsed a distinction between a self-love that separates our pursuit of happiness from our pursuit of God's glory, and a self-love that combines these pursuits into "one common interest." In other words, he did not make Peter's mistake of thinking his suffering for Christ was ultimately sacrificial. With everything he gave up there came new experiences of the glory of God. A hundredfold!

"I Never Made a Sacrifice"
On December 4, 1857, David Livingstone, the great pioneer missionary to Africa, made a stirring appeal to the students of Cambridge University, showing that he had learned through years of experience what Jesus was trying to teach Peter:
For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.21


One sentence of this quote is, I think, unhelpful and inconsistent: "Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay?" I don't think it is helpful to describe our obedience as an attempt (albeit impossible) to pay God back for his grace. It is a contradiction of free grace to think of it that way. Not only is it unhelpful, it is inconsistent with the rest of what Livingstone says. He says his obedience is in fact more receiving-healthful, peaceful, hopeful. It would honor God's grace and value more if we dropped the notion of paying him back at all. We are not involved in a trade or purchase. We have received a gift. But this reservation aside, the last line is magnificent: "I never made a sacrifice."
This is what Jesus' rebuke to Peter's sacrificial (self-pitying?) spirit was supposed to teach. Our great incentive for throwing our lives into the cause of Frontier Missions is the 10,000-percent return on the investment. Missionaries have borne witness to this from the beginning-since the apostle Paul.

Paul was bold to say that everything was garbage compared to knowing and suffering with Jesus:
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ . . . that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings. (Philippians 3:7-10)
This slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. (2 Corinthians 4:17)
I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. (Romans 8:18)
I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. (1 Corinthians 9:23)22
Holy Missionaries Are Most Hedonistic
It is simply amazing how consistent are the testimonies of missionaries who have suffered for the gospel. Virtually all of them bear witness of the abundant joy and overriding compensations (a hundredfold!).
Colin Grant describes how the Moravian Brethren were sending missionaries out from the mountains of Saxony in central Europe sixty years before William Carey set out for India. With utter abandon they reached the West Indies, Surinam, North America, Greenland, South Africa, China and Persia between 1732 and 1742-"a record without parallel in the post-New Testament era of world evangelization." In recounting the main characteristics of this movement, Grant puts "glad obedience" at the top of the list. "In the first place, the missionary obedience of the Moravian Brethren was essentially glad and spontaneous, `the response of a healthy organism to the law of its life.'"23

Andrew Murray refers to this "law of life" in his missionary classic
Key to the Missionary Problem. Nature teaches us that every believer should be a soul-winner: "It is an essential part of the new nature. We see it in every child who loves to tell of his happiness and to bring others to share his joys."24 Missions is the automatic outflow and overflow of love for Christ. We delight to enlarge our joy in him by extending it to others. As Lottie Moon said, "Surely there can be no greater joy than that of saving souls."25
What Lottie Moon did in promoting the cause of foreign missions among Southern Baptist women in the United States, Amy Carmichael did among the Christian women of all denominations in the United Kingdom. She wrote thirty-five books detailing her fifty-five years in India. Sherwood Eddy, a missionary statesman and author who knew her well, said, "Amy Wilson Carmichael was the most Christlike character I ever met, and . . . her life was the most fragrant, the most joyfully sacrificial, that I ever knew."26 "Joyfully sacrificial!" That is what Jesus was after when he rebuked Peter's sacrificial spirit in Mark 10:29-30.
John Hyde, better known as "Praying Hyde," led a life of incredibly intense prayer as a missionary to India at the turn of the century. Some thought him morose. But a story about him reveals the true spirit behind his life of sacrificial prayer.
A worldly lady once thought she would have a little fun at Mr. Hyde's expense. So she asked, "Don't you think, Mr. Hyde, that a lady who dances can go to heaven?" He looked at her with a smile, said quietly, "I do not see how a lady can go to heaven unless she dances." Then he dwelt on the joy of sin forgiven.27
Samuel Zwemer, famous for his missionary work among the Muslims, gives a stirring witness to the joy of sacrifice. In 1897 he and his wife and two daughters sailed to the Persian Gulf to work among the Muslims of Bahrein. Their evangelism was largely fruitless. The temperatures soared regularly to 107 "in the coolest part of the verandah." In July 1904 both the daughters, ages four and seven, died within eight days of each other. Nevertheless, fifty years later Zwemer looked back on this period and wrote, "The sheer joy of it all comes back. Gladly would I do it all over again."28
In the end, the reason Jesus rebukes us for a self-pitying spirit of sacrifice is that he aims to be glorified in the great missionary enterprise. And the way he aims to be glorified is by keeping himself in the role of benefactor and keeping us in the role of beneficiaries. He never intends for the patient and the physician to reverse roles. Even if we are called to be missionaries, we remain invalids in Christ's sanatorium. We are still in need of a good physician. We are still dependent on him to do the humanly impossible in us and through us. We may sacrifice other things to enter Christ's hospital, but we are there for our spiritual health, not to pay back a debt to the doctor!

Invalids Make the Best Missionaries
Daniel Fuller uses this picture of patient and doctor to show how the effective missionary avoids the presumption of assisting God:

An analogy for understanding how to live the Christian life without being a legalist is to think of ourselves as being sick and needing a doctor's help in order to get well. Men begin life with a disposition so inclined to evil that Jesus called them "children of hell" (Matthew 23:15).... In Mark 2:17 and elsewhere Jesus likened Himself to a doctor with the task of healing man's sins; He received the name "Jesus" because it was His mission to "save His people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21). The moment we turn from loving things in this world to bank our hope on God and His promises summed up in Jesus Christ, Jesus takes us, as it were, into His clinic to heal us of our hellish dispositions.... True faith means not only being confident that one's sins are forgiven but also means believing God's promises that we will have a happy future through eternity. Or, to revert to the metaphor of medicine and the clinic, we must entrust our sick selves to Christ as the Great Physician, with confidence that He will work until our hellishness is transformed into godliness. 

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Satisfaction by J Campbell White

Most men are not satisfied with the permanent output of their lives. Nothing can wholly satisfy the life of Christ within his followers except the adoption of Christ's purpose toward the world he came to redeem. Fame, pleasure and riches are but husks and ashes in contrast with the boundless and abiding joy of working with God for the fulfillment of his eternal plans. The men who are putting everything into Christ's undertaking are getting out of life its sweetest and most priceless rewards.
 

J. Campbell White ( 1909)
Secretary of the Laymen's Missionary Movement 

Monday, March 10, 2014

Space Burial and meaning in Life, Longevity and ...

the same Houston outfit that rocketed Leary's cremated remains in 1997 in the first commercial space burial is inviting the public to join him in intergalactic immortality. On Saturday, some people took them up on it.
At a busy Long Beach Aspace Fair convention, Carl Grillmaier paid $50 to send he and his wife's DNA - six strands of hair- and a personal message on the next voyage mounted by the firm Encounter 2001

Jacques Cousteau on Meaning in Life

He said, "I couldn't care less how I'm remembered or if I'm remembered. When life is finished it is finished."

Author: Jacques Cousteau
Date: June 26, 1997
Source: LA Times

Monday, March 03, 2014

Cameron Townsend's Faith

“I remember the Day Mr. Townsend came into my office in 1945. He presented the most ridiculous plan I had ever heard.
He wanted to go into the jungle with a group of linguists. They were going to learn the languages of the people, form alphabets teach the people how to read and translate the Bible into those languages. He wanted my blessing on this impossible project. Our conversation went like this:

Friday, February 21, 2014

Finding the Power to go the distance

"Moses was wounded, Churchill was wounded, and perhaps you are wounded." "The God who oversees and controls the events of history is overseeing your life as well. And He knows exactly what He is doing. You may have lost control of your circumstances, but He has not. He has enrolled you in a course you didn't sign up for. And if you remain teachable, He'll make sure you finish strong."(1623)

"God was far from finished with Moses. Although Moses felt God had removed His hand from him, nothing was further from the truth. God's hand was as firmly on Moses in the desert as it had been when he was a babe in the bulrushes. God was signing Moses up for a master's degree with a major in character development. While he was in the desert over the next forty years, Moses took four core courses: unemployment 101, advanced obscurity, remedial waiting, and intermediate loneliness." (163)


FINISHING STRONG 
Finding the Power to Go the Distance Steve Farrar

Multnomah Books, 1995, ISBN 1576730239

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