Okay, so I
totally forgot about Jesus Freak Friday last week. But I was home on
Spring Break; there, that's may excuse. :) Oh, by the way, I started
a blog about our puppies-- same pictures that I post here, but worth a peek if you want to see how they have grown! :D Anyway, I got this story from the
VOM website from the Extreme Devotion book. (Sorry for all the links! :)
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The woman was one month away from graduating from Bible school along with her daughter. It was the same Bible school where her son, Stenley, had gone before he went to another Indonesian island as a missionary. Stenley was killed for carrying the gospel, but his testimony had prompted many others to go to Bible school and to accept God’s call to share his love.
When they had completed their training, the woman and her daughter planned to go to the very village where Stenley had died. She hoped for a chance to show Christ’s love, even to the men who had beaten her son to death. A visitor to the Bible school, hearing of her plans, was surprised. “Are you not afraid to die?” he asked her.
The woman seemed confused by the question, as if it was not something she had thought of before. “Why should I be afraid to die?” she answered simply.
Her faith in God’s goodness was complete. If he chose to use her in the village where her son died, so be it. And if he permitted her to die there, she would accept that call as well. Her death would bring her into the presence of the Christ she loved. Death was not an obstacle or a punishment, merely a doorway into the eternal presence of God.
Facing death can remind us of children standing above the edge of a water hole. We hug our own shoulders tightly to our bodies, shivering with the anticipation of the unknown. Will it hurt? Will I make it? We don’t want to be the first to jump—not with all these uncertainties. Fortunately, we don’t have to. History is full of family members who have leaped across the boundary between life and death. They are saints who died in full assurance of their destination. Jesus Christ, in fact, has gone where no other person has gone before—to death and back again. Christ, the head of our Christian family, has taken the terror out of death and replaced it with assurance. Heed the call to come on in. The water’s fine.
Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?
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1 Corinthians 15:55
Then Jesus told them this parable: "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
When I was reading this passage, verse five really struck a visual picture in my mind. "And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home." I thought of a little girl being picked up by her daddy, and riding on his shoulders, after she had just fallen on the sidewalk and skinned her knee. In the same way, Jesus picks us up on His shoulders after we have stumbled and fallen. What a great comfort!!
Dinnertime!
A mission is not so much a place as it is an attitude—one’s approach toward life. A missionary is simply someone who embodies this determination and single focus and expresses it in everyday living. Richard Wurmbrand was a man on mission, and his fervor spread through the ranks of young people who recognized his purposefulness. In that sense, we are all missionaries—ambassadors for Christ—wherever we are serving. Being on mission means you are always on the alert for new opportunities to further God’s kingdom. At the watercoolers at work. At the grocery store. On the commuter train or bus. At school. The everyday world is your mission field when you are determined to further God’s kingdom.
