Recently I was talking with a friend through email about the challenges of being a missionary in another country. How rewarding! What a worthy call on a life! Exciting! Dangerous! Fulfilling! Self - sacrificing! There is no question that all of those words and phrases are accurate in describing those that labor for the Lord. I can think of other, equally accurate words....Lonely. Discouraging. Boring. Hard. Frustrating. These words might also be added to the list. (I only mention 'boring' for all the 'red tape' that I know goes with it.
Those serving the Lord in distant lands need our prayers for safety and fruitfulness. They sow seeds, He alone reaps the harvest.
So, what about us - here at home? Let's see....hmm. Do I only surround myself with like minded people? Does my circle of friends extend beyond my comfort zone? Ouch and shame, shame if that is true.
I come across people every day who are in need of love, freedom, and forgiveness. Prison bars are not always visible. In fact, most aren't. Men and women in prison know they are in prison. Many, if not most that walk around freely have no idea that they, too, are in bondage...and it seems to know no age limit.
Christians, be light! Be salt! Those that claim to know the Lord as Savior, rise up! Because the answer to life's meaning lies within you, tell it. Tell it as you go. Live it as you walk. To those that live overseas, WE are the foreign country.
Your 'little country' may be made of laundry, dishes, and hungry mouths. Dirty faces and dirty diapers may be your assignment of the day, week, month, year(s). Maybe yours is a life of being alone, or out in the workforce, or graying hairs. It does not change the call of Christ on your life. You are His. Tell someone.
Christ makes us strangers. We are aliens, we are not of this world. Our home awaits us elsewhere...so invite someone to come 'home' with you.
I am praying for you today.
Ephesians 2:14-22 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 5:17-21 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
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