Week 44—Saturday 1 Corinthians 1:17-18
1 Corinthians 1:17-18
“I WOULDN’T DO THAT FOR A MILLION”
A Christian and a non-Christian were discussing the possibility of putting a non-Christian on the Board of Management of a student center in England. The non-Christian said, “You began this Center didn’t you? We had better leave it as it is. Whatever you Christians begin, you carry on. We take things up and drop them. You have a strange persistence.” Why? Because God in Christ had a strange persistence. “He set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51)—and went.
Yesterday I talked with a couple with Unitarian leanings—cultured, earnest, and lovable—but they were leaving India after a year. Their altruism faded under the hard realities. No cross that turned defeat into victory sustained them. God taught us, but didn’t come. The motive failed.
Mary Reed’s name is a name to remember with reverence. She lived among the lepers in the Himalayas, herself having been cured of leprosy, but she never returned to her American homeland. In her old age, her faithless servant robbed her of everything, even transferred her to a poor bed in order to get possession of the better bed. I met a female British doctor missionary on her way to take over Mary Reed’s work. Did she know of this faithlessness and ingratitude? Yes. But she was going “for Jesus’ sake”—and going gladly!
When someone asked Bishop Bashford why he buried himself in China he replied, “Because I believe in a resurrection.” But he could not have believed in his own resurrection if he had not believed in Jesus’ resurrection.
A nurse was washing the sores of lepers in a mission field. A visitor from the West was watching her. He said to her, “I wouldn’t do that for a million.” The nurse replied, “Neither would I.” But she would do it “for Jesus’ sake.”
Neither command, nor need, nor money, nor anything is a motive for missions. What God has done, we must do. Jesus is our message and our motive.
Dear Lord and Father, as you have come, so we must go. We look into your face in Jesus and then we look into the face of others’ need. Then we spend the balance of our days to try to bring them together. This suffices us. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Jesus himself is my motive and my message—what better, what higher, what more?