9. One-Way Ticket
9
ONE-WAY TICKET
Recently I counseled a couple planning to enter missionary service. They claimed they desperately wanted to serve the Lord. They were well qualified, and it was obvious that the Holy Spirit was calling them into the privilege of His service.
But the world had a grip on them. They began to ask what I now recognize as the critical questions about Christian service. If they went into missions, how would they live? Would they have a home? Would they have a retirement plan? What about the education of their children? What about insurance?
They were measuring the opportunity for service by the amount of inconvenience it would cause them. They didn’t want to face the possibility of difficulties, sorrows, sacrifice and uncertainty in missionary service. The risks were too great, and so—like thousands of others—they may never obey that call.
What a contrast with the routine sacrifices made by so many Christian workers in the Third World. I think of a team of five young pioneer missionaries whom the Lord had called to begin a mission in Rajasthan, a North Indian state. They had no money for train fare, let alone for food or rent. Everyone discouraged them and begged them to stay home. But this was their answer: “If we have no money to go by train, we will walk [1,500 miles]. If one of us becomes sick and dies on the way, we will bury him on the roadside, and the rest of us will continue on. If only one of us survives the journey and reaches Rajasthan, and places only one Gospel tract on the hot desert sand of that state before he dies, we will have fulfilled our mission, and we will have obeyed our Lord.”
One-Way Ticket to Kathmandu
Many others have left South India to go north on one of the famous one-way missionary tickets to Rajasthan or Nepal. These brothers and sisters leave all, knowing that they have no way to come home if God doesn’t supply. They trust God to meet every need, conscious that the decision could mean starvation, sickness and death if He doesn’t.
The Orient is filled with the graves of missionaries from past generations who went out to the field, knowing full well that it was unlikely that they would ever return. Some, like the Moravian brethren, sold themselves into slavery in order to enter closed lands. One couple voluntarily entered exile in a leper colony, knowing that it would cost them their freedom and eventually their lives.
As we read the stories of missionary heroes, there is a tendency to dismiss their sacrifices as something that can only happen in another place and time. But that just isn’t true. If we permit the Lord to lead us, He will allow us to share in the fellowship of His sufferings wherever we are.
For example, there are quiet men and women working behind the scenes at secular jobs—but living to help support missions. They cannot go personally, but they are able to sponsor others. I think these are the real unsung heroes of missions today. Often they are known only to God. These are the people who willingly sacrifice to save whatever money they can for the work of the Lord. They may get no glory in this world, but the Bible says they are serving Christ as effectively as any frontline warrior; and they are promised their reward.
There are many practical ways that you can enter into this fellowship of suffering without leaving the shores of your nation. Wherever you are, there is a cross for you to bear. God has a path of sacrifice for each one of us if we will ask Him for the privilege of self-denial.
The Time and Money Test
Sacrifice and suffering for Christ all depend on how we choose to give our time and finances. Every one of us can at least find ways to give more time and more money to the kingdom of God if we will review our lifestyles.
The first step usually involves giving up the normal demands of our bodies for food and sleep in order to pray for others—situations, countries, peoples, tribes and the missionaries who are reaching out to them.
By fasting for a meal or giving up an evening of television, it is remarkable how much time you can make for the work of world-changing intercessory prayer. There are other strategic ways, of course, to volunteer time for missions, but none is as important as the work of prayer.
When asked to give for missions, most of us feel that we’re giving all we can. But by making a decision to look for ways to plan an act of sacrifice, there is almost always a way that we can give more.
Our office receives hundreds of letters from Christians who have found unique ways to help support national missionaries financially:
There are probably thousands of other ways that can be found to create some extra dollars to help reach lost souls. I have long believed that almost every Christian can find a way to help send out a national missionary by sacrificing somewhere in his or her personal lifestyle.
Become an Advocate for the Lost
Another method of sacrificial involvement is to become an advocate of world evangelization in your home, church and community. Sometimes this involves sacrificing some of your hopes and dreams for your children, church or civic organization. Often it means giving up prestige.
Spectator Christians and the people of this world have little time to encourage the volunteer for missions. Sometimes you will be misunderstood, deserted, hated or persecuted by others when you speak out for Christ.
In an age of plastic Christianity, when information is substituted for action, don’t be surprised if your voluntary service for missions meets opposition. Respond as Christ did and thank God for the opportunity to be misunderstood.
Here are some of the practical ways you can become an advocate of missions in your locality:
Smashing Your Vessel in His Service
When Gideon and his 300 mighty men attacked the Midianite hoards, they had to smash their earthen vessels in order to confuse the enemy with the sudden light.
I’m convinced that this is what Paul had in mind when he referred to the treasure we hold in our earthen vessels, in 2 Corinthians 4:7–8.
We must be willing to let our lives be broken and smashed in order for this light to break out. And we don’t naturally want that, of course. We want to admire our vessels and show off how clever and talented and valuable we are.
But Jesus insisted that there is no life unless first the seed is planted in the ground and dies. There is no experience of the Christ-life without the cross, no power released unless we risk suffering and sacrifice.
If Jesus Christ Himself learned obedience through suffering, how dare we try to squirm out of accepting this as a normal part of our Christian lives? Excuses won’t do. None of us is too old or too young to learn the power of voluntary self-denial. We can never say we’ve suffered enough already or that we’re not called to sacrifice. The Bible does not leave us this option. We must come to that place in which suffering is normal.
When we learn to run to it and embrace it, when we can plan habitually to go without things for Christ’s sake, then we’ve begun to live the life of reasonable service: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1).