After many years of following Jesus to the unreached people groups in and around Papua New Guinea today we find ourselves asking the question, what motivated us to leave it all and follow Jesus to the ends of the earth? I believe what move us many years ago can move men and women today. So, today I contemplate and share my thoughts with you.
Mission life has been good for Janie and I. We have boated up wild rivers, canoed to several Islands and climbed some pretty steep mountains. Riding the wind with our wonderful flight program has let us have a bird’s eye view of the land of Papua New Guinea and the many villages that still need the touch of a missionary to help them come to the place where they are able to do the mission work themselves.
Over the years as a missionary I have not been living out a call but I have been living out a command from the One that has said. “All power is given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even to the ends of the world.”
It was a call to the apostles to teach you and me to observe the command to go. I realize overseas missions are not for everyone, nor, just anyone but when Jesus comes along like He did to the two on the road to Emmaus and opens our eyes to who commanded us to go, then our hearts will burn within us. Our hearts burned within us in those early days and the flames still burn strong today.
Now to answer the question we all would like to ask, “What is in it for me if I leave it all and follow Him who said go.” That question has danced in the minds of many men and women over the years; in fact it goes back to a road side in Judea where the disciple Peter said. Mark 10:28, “See, we have left it all and followed You.” Really what he is asking is what is in it for us?
Jesus said, “Assuredly, I say to You, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or fathers or mothers or wife or children or lands, for my sake and the gospel’s, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.” By the way the stock market will not ever have any effect on this investment. Oh, by the way, there will be persecutions, count on it.
My prayer today is that our eyes will be open to look upon the fields that are white to harvest and obey by saying, here I am Lord send me. Overseas missions are not for everyone but everyone should be for those in the world that have never heard the gospel message in a language they can understand. Now, to everyone that has been a part of our ministry, Janie and I say thanks and invite you to check out Ethnos 360 a mission that is on the move.