Week 44—Wednesday Acts 5:40-42
Week 44—WEDNESDAY
“I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER LIVETH”
We are looking at the motive for missions and evangelism. The only adequate motive is based on what God has done. God went on a mission—was the first missionary; God came to us to redeem us. Then when we do the same, we are in line with what God has done and is doing. God is still coming—is still a missionary and an evangelist. God only asks us to do what God has done and is still doing. When God stops missionary activities so will I. Until then I keep on, not specially elated by success nor depressed by failure—they are irrelevant. To be true to what I see God doing in Jesus Christ is the only relevancy.
On my return after my first furlough, I said in England, “The romance of missions for me is gone. I know what I am going back to. Tell me I will never have any success, that it will all end in failure. I would go on. To be true to the highest I have seen in Christ is the only thing that matters now. I am a missionary, regardless of success or failure.” At this writing I have been a missionary fifty-five years. Give me back my choices to make over again, and I would make them as I have made them. With this proviso—that where I have been untrue I would be true.
A few days ago I stood in Tellapale, Ceylon, where one of the original five who constituted “The Haystack Group,” which took refuge in a storm under a haystack in Massachusetts, prayed that “a way might be opened to carry the gospel to the regions beyond.” Out of that haystack prayer meeting, modern missions were born, as far as America was concerned. One of those young men, Richards, came to Tellapale and lived for six years and was buried there. For six years he was frustrated by ill health, and one by one he had to give up his ambitions to be an effective missionary. But his last words were, “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” That revealed his undeterred motive—“my Redeemer.” Jesus had redeemed him and the missionary enterprise for him.
O Lord Jesus, you redeem everything you touch and you touch everything. We thank you that you redeem missions for us. For looking into your face we cannot but speak of what we see. And how we love telling! Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks,” so if my mouth doesn’t speak, it speaks of emptiness within.