I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20).
I felt called to missions up until my junior year of college. That’s when I took a course on world religions—and realized most people of other faiths are content to live with their traditional ideologies.
Since my understanding of missions at the time equated to seeing a life transformation when the lost heard the gospel, my pursuit of a missions career began to look untenable. As I wrestled with this thought, I came across a question Jesus posed to His disciples in John 6: “Are you going to go away as well?”
That’s when I realized that if I was to “do missions,” it could be only in response to what God had done for me. Other religions couldn’t hold a candle to how God had shown me grace and mercy in Jesus Christ. I was lost, and, through no merit of my own, I had been found! Sharing this message would be the natural overflow of my continual drawing near to God in worship.
A Choice
Fast forward a couple of years. I was at a low point during my internship in the North and Central Asia Region, depressed because a member of my host family wasn’t receptive after I shared my Christian testimony. I remember praying half-heartedly: “God, how are these people ever going to be saved?”
God responded to me through my reading of Matthew 9. He gave me a choice: David,* you can return to this region and work hard at telling people about Me while being miserable and anxious when they don’t respond in faith. Or, you can come be a worker in My harvest field—where My Spirit alone brings heart transformation—and leave the timing and results to Me.
Pursuing Jesus as our first love frees us to live joyfully in His grace; it opens our eyes to the things He’s doing in the world and in the people around us. This is true whether we are missionaries in another country or walking with Him in faith and obedience within our own culture.
Don’t get me wrong. Missions is important. But, when all is said and done, I do not live for “doing missions,” but for Jesus, my merciful and loving Savior.
*Name changed
—Adapted from a report by an Alliance worker serving in the North and Central Asia Region
Pray
Use the weekly Alliance Prayer Requests to join the Alliance family in interceding on behalf of our teams in the North and Central Asia Region and worldwide, who often serve in challenging circumstances that require Holy Spirit–inspired perseverance, wisdom, and creativity in demonstrating God’s love to those who don’t know Him.