Reading Missionary Newsletters

Missionary newsletters are interesting things to read. I read a few this morning and prayed for the people involved. Missionaries are people and like all people they have different perspectives, propensities to communicate and levels of transparency. Some letters come off as a sales pitch others a general's account of a campaign and yet others are very human accounts of day to day life and relationships.

I like reading them. All of them. They inspire me.

"And he said to them, 'Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.' " - Mark 16:15-16 ESV

That end of that passage sounds kind of hardcore doesn't it. Those who don't believe a frail human being are condemned... really?

"Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God." - John 3:18 ESV

Actually they are condemned already. All of us are in our natural state. Without Jesus our condemnation finds us eventually. The miracle is salvation.

Maybe because of my upbringing I'm very aware of the reality that people can tend to sell their cause. Some are aware they are doing it and others have bought something and they need to justify why they have made the investment.

Still...

I also know the power of God's word and the commission God has given all those that know Him.

"So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." - Isaiah 55:11 KJV

Are we missionaries? I say we are and if we are then we do well to believe that God is going to give results if His word is given in context.

"Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul." - 1 Peter 2:10-11 ESV

If we know Jesus we are sojourners here in this world. When you walk out that door you might as well be in a foreign country. Let's live out our Heavenly culture here on Earth and see who wants to be baptized into it.

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