Post by MIRIAM JACOB on Jan 27, 2014 12:34:43 GMT -5
Here is a detailed study of the book “The Challenge of Missions” by Oswald J. Smith.
This article is edited in a nutshell by Miriam Jacob to promote the book worldwide.
The aim of missions is to make Christ’s salvation known to all people. It is all about His saving grace. It is a determining, distinctive, spiritual and unique aim. It affirms that all people need to have their sins washed and cleansed in the Blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. The world is the mission field. Our commission is to the world, to all nations, to all people. The responsibility of missions lies with every member of the body of Christ.The command of Christ is a personal and individual call to each person, “Go in My Name, and because you believe, others will know that I live.” When God calls us to His service, He calls us by name into the glorious, soul-saving task of reaching people for Christ. The supreme task facing the Church is the evangelization of the whole world. God’s vision is a world vision. That is the vision He wants us to have. He wants us to see the world as He sees it. We are not the only pebbles on the beach.We know but little of what lies beyond. God gives us a world vision to work for the evangelization of the entire world, the world for which Christ died. The Lord issues a clarion call to His people to get involved in world missions. Come and serve Christ and His cause. He waits for you with His heart of love.
MISSIONS & MISSIONARIES
Missionaries are God’s people, specially selected, chosen and marked out to serve in missions to impact history and build up His Kingdom. The love of Christ compels missionaries to serve God in missions, through wholly unselfish lives of service, wholeheartedly serving others and not themselves. As they serve others, they please their Master, Jesus Christ. They live to please their Savior. They wait for His smile of approval. Every person who serves Christ with passionate zeal, selfless commitment and a heart dedicated to His service is a missionary, some in full-time service and others in part-time service. All work to serve Him faithfully, with a single-minded vision , for His honor and glory. God rewards all who serve Him from His heart of love.
Missionaries are ambassadors for Christ, ambassadors of the court of heaven, ambassadors on active duty on earth, official representatives of the Kingdom of God, to show Christ to His people. Missionaries serve actively in missions as they obey Christ’s command “to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to all nations.” Missionaries have a burning passion for the souls of men. They teach the whole counsel of God to establish Christians in the truth. They are constrained by Christ’s love to serve Him and feed His sheep. They accept the will of God for their lives wholeheartedly.
The first and greatest requirement of a missionary is to be born again, ready and willing to bear the cross, bold to preach the Gospel everywhere, zealous for His Master, always putting the Lord first in everything, humble, teachable, willing to learn daily from the Master, honest, sincere and straightforward before God and men.Missionaries wait upon the Lord for the revelation of His will in their lives and obey it at any cost. “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God” – Luke 9:62.
The challenge of missions is world evangelization, which is a world task, that requires a world vision. Every Christian is a missionary. Every missionary is a watchman.” “God’s orders must be obeyed, His commands carried out, and there is no way to evade the issue.” Today, most parts of the world can be reached through the media, by radio, television and the internet. Each one of us has a small but important part to play in the huge task of world evangelization. Every born-again person can serve Christ as a missionary, in small but varying ways.
Look around you and do the very first task for Christ that needs to be done. The next day, do another little task, and as the days pass by, your work for Christ will slowly but steadily build up. There is always something that you can do for Christ and His cause. Time is short and fleeting. The world waits with bated breath for you to do your part. Do your part in world missions and on the home front. You are needed somewhere. Find your place. Heed the mission call. Be a missionary. Doors are open everywhere. Why don’t you enter? Why do you pray for closed doors to open when there are open doors waiting for you to enter? Enter the open doors and allow God to open the closed doors in His time. Let us turn to our task. Let us work while it is day. Let us complete the task assigned to us in our time and generation.
If you cannot go to the mission field, you can hold the rope for someone else to go. Everyone must be in the bucket brigade to fight the fires of sin raging around us.If you cannot throw the water on the fire at the end of the line, you can pass the bucket along down the line. Or you can fill up the buckets at the start of the line. Are you in the line of missions? Do you belong to the bucket brigade? Are you fighting the fires of sin? Or are you merely a spectator? Every Christian is a missionary.
Jesus gave His disciples one task – world evangelization. Those were His instructions. Have we obeyed His orders? The one thing Jesus told us to do is the only thing left undone.Why does Christ wait to return to earth to establish His kingdom? He waits for us to complete the task of world evangelization. How long will we keep Him waiting? Have you played your part in world evangelization? Go and do your part. Either go yourself, or help to send someone else, or send your words where you cannot go. A missionary must preach so that a sinner can hear and be saved. We must either be the missionary or send a missionary. Let us do our task and not rest until our work is complete.
What is the most important work of the hour? It is to carry out and fulfill our Lord’s last orders. Jesus issued His marching orders. We are His army of soldiers, ready to obey His commands at a moment’s notice. “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every person” – (Mark 16:15). This is the call to missions. Missionaries, arise and go! Hear the wake-up call. Your time is now. Tomorrow might be too late!
To those who have already heard God’s call, give yourself, your time, your money and your possessions to missions and to the causes around you. We have but one great task. If the King is to reign, we must finish the task. He counts on us to do it. All God asks of you is to complete your assigned task in your generation. It is the one and only task Christ left His Church to do. You are the Church of Christ, bought with His blood. Arise for Christ!
Go out and follow the vision, go where no one else has gone, do what only you can do, invest your life in something worthwhile. You, too, can be a pioneer. Don’t settle down to the humdrum and monotony of daily life. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth” – (Acts 1:8). Complete the unfinished task of winning souls to Christ. “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life” – (John 3:16). God gave Heaven’s best. What have you given?
“The mission of the Church is missions. The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions.” “God is a God of missions.”"God had an only Son and He made Him a missionary.”
(Based on the book “The Challenge of Missions” by Oswald J. Smith, quotes by Oswald J. Smith, Henry Martyn & George W. Peters, a quote from “Freely, Freely, You Have Received” by Carol Owens)
This article is edited in a nutshell by Miriam Jacob to promote the book worldwide.
The aim of missions is to make Christ’s salvation known to all people. It is all about His saving grace. It is a determining, distinctive, spiritual and unique aim. It affirms that all people need to have their sins washed and cleansed in the Blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. The world is the mission field. Our commission is to the world, to all nations, to all people. The responsibility of missions lies with every member of the body of Christ.The command of Christ is a personal and individual call to each person, “Go in My Name, and because you believe, others will know that I live.” When God calls us to His service, He calls us by name into the glorious, soul-saving task of reaching people for Christ. The supreme task facing the Church is the evangelization of the whole world. God’s vision is a world vision. That is the vision He wants us to have. He wants us to see the world as He sees it. We are not the only pebbles on the beach.We know but little of what lies beyond. God gives us a world vision to work for the evangelization of the entire world, the world for which Christ died. The Lord issues a clarion call to His people to get involved in world missions. Come and serve Christ and His cause. He waits for you with His heart of love.
MISSIONS & MISSIONARIES
Missionaries are God’s people, specially selected, chosen and marked out to serve in missions to impact history and build up His Kingdom. The love of Christ compels missionaries to serve God in missions, through wholly unselfish lives of service, wholeheartedly serving others and not themselves. As they serve others, they please their Master, Jesus Christ. They live to please their Savior. They wait for His smile of approval. Every person who serves Christ with passionate zeal, selfless commitment and a heart dedicated to His service is a missionary, some in full-time service and others in part-time service. All work to serve Him faithfully, with a single-minded vision , for His honor and glory. God rewards all who serve Him from His heart of love.
Missionaries are ambassadors for Christ, ambassadors of the court of heaven, ambassadors on active duty on earth, official representatives of the Kingdom of God, to show Christ to His people. Missionaries serve actively in missions as they obey Christ’s command “to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to all nations.” Missionaries have a burning passion for the souls of men. They teach the whole counsel of God to establish Christians in the truth. They are constrained by Christ’s love to serve Him and feed His sheep. They accept the will of God for their lives wholeheartedly.
The first and greatest requirement of a missionary is to be born again, ready and willing to bear the cross, bold to preach the Gospel everywhere, zealous for His Master, always putting the Lord first in everything, humble, teachable, willing to learn daily from the Master, honest, sincere and straightforward before God and men.Missionaries wait upon the Lord for the revelation of His will in their lives and obey it at any cost. “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God” – Luke 9:62.
The challenge of missions is world evangelization, which is a world task, that requires a world vision. Every Christian is a missionary. Every missionary is a watchman.” “God’s orders must be obeyed, His commands carried out, and there is no way to evade the issue.” Today, most parts of the world can be reached through the media, by radio, television and the internet. Each one of us has a small but important part to play in the huge task of world evangelization. Every born-again person can serve Christ as a missionary, in small but varying ways.
Look around you and do the very first task for Christ that needs to be done. The next day, do another little task, and as the days pass by, your work for Christ will slowly but steadily build up. There is always something that you can do for Christ and His cause. Time is short and fleeting. The world waits with bated breath for you to do your part. Do your part in world missions and on the home front. You are needed somewhere. Find your place. Heed the mission call. Be a missionary. Doors are open everywhere. Why don’t you enter? Why do you pray for closed doors to open when there are open doors waiting for you to enter? Enter the open doors and allow God to open the closed doors in His time. Let us turn to our task. Let us work while it is day. Let us complete the task assigned to us in our time and generation.
If you cannot go to the mission field, you can hold the rope for someone else to go. Everyone must be in the bucket brigade to fight the fires of sin raging around us.If you cannot throw the water on the fire at the end of the line, you can pass the bucket along down the line. Or you can fill up the buckets at the start of the line. Are you in the line of missions? Do you belong to the bucket brigade? Are you fighting the fires of sin? Or are you merely a spectator? Every Christian is a missionary.
Jesus gave His disciples one task – world evangelization. Those were His instructions. Have we obeyed His orders? The one thing Jesus told us to do is the only thing left undone.Why does Christ wait to return to earth to establish His kingdom? He waits for us to complete the task of world evangelization. How long will we keep Him waiting? Have you played your part in world evangelization? Go and do your part. Either go yourself, or help to send someone else, or send your words where you cannot go. A missionary must preach so that a sinner can hear and be saved. We must either be the missionary or send a missionary. Let us do our task and not rest until our work is complete.
What is the most important work of the hour? It is to carry out and fulfill our Lord’s last orders. Jesus issued His marching orders. We are His army of soldiers, ready to obey His commands at a moment’s notice. “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every person” – (Mark 16:15). This is the call to missions. Missionaries, arise and go! Hear the wake-up call. Your time is now. Tomorrow might be too late!
To those who have already heard God’s call, give yourself, your time, your money and your possessions to missions and to the causes around you. We have but one great task. If the King is to reign, we must finish the task. He counts on us to do it. All God asks of you is to complete your assigned task in your generation. It is the one and only task Christ left His Church to do. You are the Church of Christ, bought with His blood. Arise for Christ!
Go out and follow the vision, go where no one else has gone, do what only you can do, invest your life in something worthwhile. You, too, can be a pioneer. Don’t settle down to the humdrum and monotony of daily life. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth” – (Acts 1:8). Complete the unfinished task of winning souls to Christ. “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life” – (John 3:16). God gave Heaven’s best. What have you given?
“The mission of the Church is missions. The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions.” “God is a God of missions.”"God had an only Son and He made Him a missionary.”
(Based on the book “The Challenge of Missions” by Oswald J. Smith, quotes by Oswald J. Smith, Henry Martyn & George W. Peters, a quote from “Freely, Freely, You Have Received” by Carol Owens)