Enjoyed last weekend’s McLean Bible Church Global Impact Prayer Summit, which included visits from faithful servants around the globe.
John Piper writes in Risk is Right,
“We can rest content in casual, convenient, cozy, comfortable Christian lives as we cling to the safety and security this world offers. We can coast through a cultural landscape marked by materialism, characterized by consumerism, and engulfed in individualism. We can assent to the spirit of this age and choose to spend our lives seeking worldly pleasures, acquiring worldly possessions, and pursuing worldly ambitions—all under the banner of cultural Christianity. Or we can decide that Jesus is worth more than this. We can recognize that he has created us, saved us, and called us for a much greater purpose than anything this world could ever offer us.”
The power of a visiting missionary to impact lives and call others to the field is evident in the examples below.
Amy Carmichael
Amy attended the Keswick Convention, a gathering of Evangelical Christians in England to promote Bible teachings and missions. It was there that she heard Hudson Taylor speak about his work with the China Inland Mission. His speech so moved her that she realized mission work was her calling.
Jim Elliott
As a small child in Oregon, Elliot listened carefully as visiting missionaries described life on faraway missions fields. He asked questions and dreamed about being a missionary himself some day.
David Livingstone
The reading of the biography of Henry Martyn, missionary to India and Persia, stirred his heart to give to missions. However, after hearing Karl Gutzlaff speak on the spiritual needs in China, Livingstone was moved to go, stating, “It is my desire to show my attachment to the cause of Him who died for me by devoting my life to His service.”
Jonathan Goforth
While in college, Goforth heard Missionary George Leslie Mackay present the call to missions in a powerful way. Jonathan described that meeting as such, “I heard the voice of the Lord saying: ‘Who will go for us and whom shall we send?’ and I answered: ‘Here am I, send me.’ From that hour I became a foreign missionary.”
Hudson Taylor
Hudson was so impacted by the ministry of distant missionary George Muller, to orphans in Bristol, England, that it is reflected in his obituary.
Hudson Taylor is no more. A prince of Israel has been gathered home. He died in China, the land he loved more than life. In his way he was as great a man as George Muller. Like him, he had more faith in God than man. The China Inland Mission, of which he was the founder, was run on similar lines to the orphanage at Bristol. What the writer of these lines owes to Hudson Taylor will never be known.
Praying that, perhaps, the Lord would us the missionaries’ presence at the Prayer Summit to call new faithful servants to serve the Kingdom around the globe.
