Can We Trouble Ourselves?

March 22

Whatever It Takes

A couple of years ago, a member of my church’s vocal team, and I were invited by a Christian leader named Yesu to go to southern India. There we would join a team of people from various parts of the U.S. We were told that God would use us to reach Muslims and Hindus and non-religious people for Christ. We all felt called by God to go, but none of us knew what to expect.

When we arrived, Yesu met us and invited us to his home. Over the course of the next few days, he told us about his ministry. Yesu’s father, a dynamic leader and speaker, had started the mission in a Hindu-dominated area. One day a Hindu leader came to Yesu’s father and asked for prayer. Eager to pray with him, hoping he would lead him to Christ, he took him into a private room, knelt down with him, closed his eyes and began to pray.

While he was praying, the Hindu man reached into his robe, pulled out a knife and stabbed him repeatedly. Yesu, hearing his father’s screams, ran to help him. He held him in his arms as blood poured out onto the floor of the hut. Three days later, his father died.

On his deathbed he said to his son, “Please tell that man that he is forgiven. Care for your mother and carry on this ministry. Do whatever it takes to win people to Christ.”
by American pastor Bill Hybels from Too Busy Not To Pray

How many of us would be willing to lay down our lives for the sake of sharing the gospel with someone who was not merely unsaved but that despised us with a vitriolic hatred because we love and serve Jesus Christ?

Let alone allow ourselves to be sacrificed for the sake of the Gospel, how many of us are willing to be inconvenienced for the sake of sharing our faith? Can we trouble ourselves to witness to our neighbors? Do we support community outreach programs with our enthusiastic participation?

How many of us care enough to be aware of such ministries and have an insight into the needs they face? The unfortunate reality is that apart from placing our meager contribution into the collection plate, we are abysmally uninvolved in the Great Commission to “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature,” Mark 16:15.

If our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ cared enough to leave the glory of Heaven that we might be saved, should we not be willing to leave our comfort zone in order that those who have not heard may hear?

For the Word is very clear, “How can they believe in Him they have not heard? And how can they hear if there is no preacher? And how can they preach unless they be sent?” Romans 10:14, 15.

Jesus, our example, would have us to live our lives for Him and to love even the unlovely for Him. If believers are impassioned enough to lay down their lives in the behalf of His Kingdom’s purposes, surely we should be willing to devote ourselves to assuring that no one within our sphere of influence lacks a knowledge of the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ.