Monday, March 22, 2010

Thinking About the World God "so loved" (John 3:16)

Last night I returned from a trip to Guatemala. We took family vacation time so the four of us could travel together. Aside from time together, we were traveling in the western part of the country visiting with church leaders about future ministry opportunities for our church. We were blessed by the vision, sacrifice, and commitment of these men and women. They cared for the poor, the hungry, the sick, and those living in spiritual darkness. I saw aged spiritual leaders still moved to tears by the needs of the people. We found multiple ways to partner with believers and churches.

In two weeks I will go with a team from our church to Malawi - one of the most impoverished nations in the world. We wll work with church leaders again to share the love of God in a hard part of the world.

Upon my return I noticed that last week was David Livingstone's birthday. I wanted to share a little of his story as I have been thinking and praying about God's work in this world:

David Livingstone was born March 19, 1813. He gave his life to serve Christ in the exploration of Africa for the sake of the access of the gospel.

On December 4, 1857, he spoke the sentence that has made the greatest impact on me. It is one of the clearest applications I have seen of Jesus' words in Mark 10:29-30. 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.

Here is what Livingstone said to the Cambridge students about his "leaving" the benefits of England:

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. . . . 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.

(Cited in Samuel Zwemer, "The Glory of the Impossible" in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, Ralph Winter and Stephen Hawthorne, eds. [Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1981], p. 259. Emphasis added.)

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