Thoughts on Missions

I've been reading stories about great missionaries lately...David Livingstone, Amy Carmichael, Gladys Aylward, Hudson Taylor, Sabina Wurmbrand, James Calvert, Nate Saint, Jim and Elisabeth Elliot and others. It's made me ponder: why do we have to look back so many years to find such examples of loving service, radical sacrifice, and lives entirely set apart for Christ? If Jesus has called all His followers to walk the path that He tread shouldn't all our lives look like His did? Shouldn't my life display total separation to the will of God, Christ-like love for others, and willingness to follow Him even if it cost me everything? After all, if God was willing to become nothing-to have nothing on this earth-but to give everything, even His life, am I somehow better than He was and only asked to love others when it's comfortable or convenient, or to give when it requires nothing of me?

These questions are uncomfortable, I can attest to that. This kind of love, and unselfishness goes entirely against my human nature. What my human nature wants is it's own comfort, it's own prosperity, it's own way. There is no way for me to muster up such an unselfish love for others regardless of the cost to myself. No way for me to seek the good of others no matter what it requires from me. I can try, in fact I can say that there have been times that I have tried, but every time I will fail.

My human nature and my own desires will always be at war with Christ's nature and His desires. That is why Paul said: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." Until my own nature dies, I will never love others as Jesus did. Until my own nature dies, I will never be willing to give my all, even my own life, for another. Until my own nature dies, I will struggle in vain to replicate Christ's life in my own strength, yet fall far short of my goal over and over again and succeed only at making myself a miserable failure of a replica.

The reason the apostles were victorious, the reason the other Christian heroes of our faith were successful, was that they realized they could never love as Jesus did, or serve as He served, unless the first died as He died. In their lives they exhibited the truth that it was not "[they] that lived, but Christ that live[d] in [them]"

Their own desires, their own plans, their own love, their own self, was dead. It was Jesus that loved others through them, it was Jesus that served the needy through them, it was Jesus that lived His life through them. That was the secret of their lives. That is why they could say things like:

"If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him." – C.T. Studd

"If God would grant us the vision, the word sacrifice would disappear from our lips and thoughts; we would hate the things that seem now so dear to us; our lives would suddenly be too short, we would despise time-robbing distractions and charge the enemy with all our energies in the name of Christ." – Nate Saint, two weeks before he was martyred by the Aucas

"I am ready to burn out for God. I am ready to endure any hardship, if by any means I might save some. The longing of my heart is to make known my glorious Redeemer to those who have never heard." – William Burns

"For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren; my kinsmen according to the flesh." -Paul the apostle

"If I had 1,000 lives, I'd give them all for China" — Hudson Taylor

When James Calvert went out as a missionary to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands, the ship captain tried to turn him back, saying, "You will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among such savages." To that, Calvert replied, "We died before we came here."

So the question must now be asked of each of us: have I died so that Christ might live? If the answer to that question is yes, I believe the world would again see men and women go forward in the power and love of God and change the world as these great men and women have done before us. If we are dead already, no sacrifice will be too great, no hardship too difficult, and no person unworthy of our love and service. That is because it is not us doing the sacrificing, enduring the hardships, or loving others unselfishly, it is Christ, demonstrating His life of sacrificial love and unselfish service through our life. It will not be us struggling in vain to imitate Jesus, but Him living his perfect life in and through us. And He is very good at being Himself...

~"I used to ask God to help me. Then I asked if I might help Him. I ended up by asking Him to do His work through me."~
Hudson Taylor