Jim Elliot was martyred in Ecuador at age 29.

Jim was fueled by a passion to see the nations praise the Lord Jesus. He trusted Jesus as Savior at age 8 and as a teenager began to feel a call to missions. His wife wrote that his aim in life was “to know God.”

Jim’s other great aim in life was to exalt God. In a letter to his parents that he wrote as a 21 year-old, he described missionaries as normal people. He called them, “a bunch of nobodies trying to exalt Somebody.”

On January 8, 1956, Jim and 4 other missionaries waited for the chance to meet with the Auca or Huaorani Indians. They longed to exalt Somebody to a group of men who had never heard His name.

Even thought Jim was carrying a gun, he refused to use it. Suspecting danger his wife asked him before his last journey if he would use his gun to defend himself against the Indians. Jim replied, “We will not use our guns!” When asked why he replied, “Because we are ready for heaven, but they are not.”

Jim’s short life certainly exalted God and His purposes.

Who does your life exalt?

__________________________________________________________________________________________

*Elliot’s remarkable story was made more popular by the 2006 motion picture, End of the Spear. If you have never invested much time into missionary biographies, give a couple of hours to watching this movie and it might just pique your interest.

**For this entry I am in debt to Daniel Akin’s Five Who Changed the World.

Lottie Moon stood 4 feet, 3 inches tall and weighed roughly 50 pounds when she died at age 72. Her frail, weak, nearly starved frame had endured 39 years on the mission field in China.

Her life was not perfect, but her life was powerful. She was a living sacrifice to God.

Lottie lived and ministered to women in remote villages in China giving her life to share the message of Christ. Her letters to her friends and family express her inability to understand why more wasn’t being done to reach these people for Christ.

She couldn’t understand why Christians in America could live in wealth refusing to give more money for missions while people in China had no one to tell them about Christ.

“It fills one with sorrow to see these people so earnest in their worship of false gods… with no one to tell them of a better way. Then, to remember the wealth hoarded in Christian coffers! The money we lavish on fine dresses and costly living!”

“One cannot help asking sadly, why is love of gold more potent than love of souls?”

She couldn’t understand why Christians in America could ignore the call of God to reach the people in remote parts of the world for Christ.

“The needs of these people press upon my soul, and I cannot be silent. It is grievous to think of these human souls going down to death without even one opportunity of hearing the name of Jesus.”

She couldn’t understand why more Christians won’t present their lives as living sacrifices to God. Will you present your life as a living sacrifice?

*The factual information and quotes in this blog entry comes from Daniel Akin’s Five Who Changed the World.

“For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

Philippians 1:21 (ESV)

Bill Wallace was brutally murdered because of his faith in Christ in China on February 10, 1951. The two powerful truths of Philippians 1:21 defined his life.

For Bill to live was Christ. At age 17 Bill decided to follow God’s call and become a medical missionary. 10 years to the month after making this decision - after graduating from the University of Tennessee and University Medical School in Memphis and completing his medical residency - Bill was appointed as a medical missionary to Wuchow, South China.

Bill bypassed marriage to a young lady many of his friends expected him to marry. Bill bypassed a lucrative medical career in the United States. Bill’s life was all about Jesus.

For Bill to die was gain. Political unrest and instability marked Bill’s time in China. He lived there during the Japanese invasion of China, World War II, and the Communist takeover. Through each season, Bill ministered to people’s physical needs in the hospital often foregoing food so others could eat. Even more, he shared with them the message of Jesus Christ.

After refusing to leave China because of impending persecution, Bill was arrested on December 19, 1950 and charged with being an American spy. After nearly two months of brainwashing and torture while in prison, Bill gained the presence of God.

For who or what are you living? What will be gained by your death?

__________________________________________________________________________________________

*For this entry I am in debt to Daniel Akin’s Five Who Changed the World.

In case you have never heard them before, today I share some interesting thoughts about missions and its place in the order of life and ministry.

“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.”

From John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad, 2003, p. 17.

When worship is rightly understood, Piper argues, it becomes the fuel and goal of missions. Therefore, missions is secondary and worship is primary. So we might ask…

• What is the ultimate goal of our missions endeavors? Man’s salvation or God’s glory?
• What provides the fuel for our missions endeavors? Man’s salvation or God’s glory?

William Carey was born in England in 1761 and left as a missionary to India in 1793. Although he was poor and almost completely uneducated, Carey translated the Bible into dozens of languages and established schools and missions all over India. What he lacked in terms of education and skill he made up with surrender to God’s call.

He simply could not understand how Christians could read this text and “sit at ease” while most of the world is “lost in ignorance and idolatry.” So Carey left the comforts of life in England for the trials of missionary life.

And he would face more than his share of trials. He faced unimaginable grief in burying two wives and three children. He faced physical suffering in losing most of his hair in his 20’s due to illness and fighting back diarrhea and malaria. He faced exhaustion by serving in India for 41 years without ever taking a vacation. He faced discouragement in serving 7 years before baptizing his first convert.

Yet Carey remained and through his work thousands have been changed. They have been changed because the Bible is in their language. They have been changed because the gospel is now preached in their communities. They have been changed because one man was willing to abandon his life to surrender to God’s call to make disciples.

Will you obey the call to make disciples?

___________________________________________________________________________________________

*The factual information for this blog entry comes from two terrific books. Daniel Akin’s Five Who Changed the World and Timothy George’s Faithful Witness: The Life and Mission of William Carey.

On June 17, I presented part one of this series in which I wrote…

“Unless the Church redefines how she understands and uses this medium, television preaching may (in the long-run) do more harm than good for the spread of the gospel.”

I return to the subject today to present the two more reasons televised preaching poses a threat to worldwide evangelism.

Televised preaching robs legitimate missionary endeavors of necessary funds.

Every dollar spent producing a televised sermon is a dollar taken from legitimate disciple-making endeavors throughout the world. The multi-million-dollar television production that supports many of these “ministries” could fund thousands of missionaries. The half-baked pleas offering a cheesy trinket in exchange for a monetary gift or seed included in these broadcast “ministries” disgraces the gospel and diverts resources from more effective ministry efforts.

Furthermore, the poor stewardship of televised preaching ministries is growing as the production costs of these programs increase. The obsession with production quality contradicts the argument that television is simply a medium for communicating a gospel that is simple and powerful. The message of the gospel is not enhanced by increased graphical creativity; rather these expensive elements distract from the gospel’s simplicity and rob even more money from legitimate missionary endeavors.

Televised preaching does not plant churches.

The first disciples used one primary technique to fulfill Jesus’ Commission: plant churches. From Jesus’ ascension to the close of the New Testament, the first missionaries would enter a town, share the gospel, and start a local church. Televised preaching ministries are incapable of following the most basic New Testament pattern for spreading the gospel.

Follow our money and you will always find our treasure. From our spending it seems many have forgotten that disciples have been and always will be made through personal investment.

By Daniel L. Akin

Akin - the president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary - preached five sermons in which he used stories from missionary biographies to illustrate and emphasize the biblical call to reach the world for Christ. This short book presents these sermons highlighting God’s call as seen in and through five men and women. The combination of clear biblical explanation and moving testimonies makes these messages particularly inspiring.

Together these five men and women would form a veritable missionary all-star team as each one lived and died for Christ in a land far from their birthplace. Despite relocating to wildly different parts of the world, their stories bear striking similarities. Among these parallels one emerged above the rest: they maintained an astounding ability to deny self.

Leaving family and friends and comfort at home, they denied themselves in the face of God’s call. Finding disease and poverty and persecution in a foreign land, they denied themselves in the face of God’s call. Burying spouses and children and co-labors along the way, they denied themselves in the face of God’s call. Often laboring years with little or no visible results, they denied themselves in the face of God’s call.

In a culture where we Christians struggle to deny ourselves a million frivolous distractions a day, their example is especially relevant and challenging.

Make time to download and listen to these messages or read this short book very soon. But be very careful because these messages might just change your world - or at least your worldview.