Go or Send

eDevotion: Encouragement for your daily walk with God

I had a friend in Bible College who said that he had always wanted to be a missionary, but never experienced a “calling” to go. We attended many mission conferences, and prayed together about this. I heard him say on many occasions, “Lord, I’m available and I’ll go anywhere you want me to go.” To my knowledge, he never became a missionary. However, he was blessed with a good job and he supported a lot of missionaries. He said, “Until God instructs me to pack my bags, I’m going to send others to the ‘uttermost parts of the earth.’” 

The Apostle Paul asked a series of questions in Romans 10 that can be summed up like this: How will the world hear about Jesus if I do nothing? For the most part, God puts us in families and communities so we will mingle with others and share the Good News with those around us. That doesn’t call for extra expenses because it’s just living out life. Others He may call to far away places - “to the uttermost parts of the earth” [Acts 1:8] - and that requires extra resources. 

Here’s the point: Every Christ follower is called to missions as either a goer or sender! 

Talk with the Lord about it and be open to go wherever He tells you to go. Sink your roots in a community only as deep as God allows. And if he doesn’t call you to go, then be a sender. Offer your prayers, your money, or anything else that makes it possible to put other people on the mission field.

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written [Isaiah 52:7]: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” Romans 10:14-15