Morning break

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Towel of Babel, 1563

I slept more than I ought to last night. Woke up in the morning, and decided to listen to john piper's podcast. Actually I find it easier to listen than to read sometimes, because it forces me to focus on the message; half my brain usually goes somewhere else when I'm reading. So anyway, today's bedtime/quiet-time story was on missions. Was quite inspired by the last part of his 1996 sermon. Can check out the rest of the message in this link:

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/1996/974_A_Passion_for_the_Supremacy_of_ChristWhere_He_Is_Not_Named/


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Conviction #7: God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him; and our satisfaction in him is greatest when it expands to embrace others.

It is amazing how those who have suffered most in the missionary cause speak in the most lavish terms of the blessing and the joy of it all. Start with Jesus: "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it" (Mark 8:34-35). We save our lives by giving them away in the cause of the gospel. This is what Paul meant when he said, "This slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison" (2 Corinthians 4:17). And: "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us" (Romans 8:18).

Samuel Zwemer—after fifty years of missions labor (including the loss of two young children in North Africa)—said, "The sheer joy of it all comes back. Gladly would I do it all over again." And both Hudson Taylor and David Livingston, after lives of extraordinary hardship and loss said, "I never made a sacrifice."

When people who have suffered much speak like this, their God is magnified. If God can so satisfy their souls that even their sufferings are experienced as steps into deeper joy with him, then he must be far more wonderful than all that the earth has to offer. Psalm 63:3 must really be true: "The steadfast love of the Lord is better than life."

These are our driving missions convictions at Bethlehem. If God opens your heart, you will see that there is no better way to live than in the wartime lifestyle that maximizes all you are and all you have for the sake of finishing the great commission. Because in this way God is magnified; we are satisfied; and the nations are loved.

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