Is it God’s work, we go chop?
You have said, ‘What’s the use of serving God? What have we gained by obeying his commands or by trying to show the Lord of Heaven’s Armies that we are sorry for our sins? Malachi 3:14
Is God to be blamed for not “Calling” people to missions? Or people are being disobedient to the “Calling” of being engaged as missionaries?
How can the 3.4 billion people of the Unreached People Group (UPG) hear the Gospel without a missionary accepting the call to go? Rom. 10:14-15
Today, the call to be sent as a missionary is gradually becoming an “old stuff” in the Body of Christ. One is more likely to receive an invitation to the induction or ordination ceremony of a Pastor than to a ceremony marking the sending forth of missionaries to the unreached, the neglected and forgotten.
According to Global status (2018), the ratio of UPG workers to the total unreached world is: 1 missionary for every 216,300 people. What at all accounts for such a derailing stands?
Is it that the Holy Spirit is no more instructing us to separate people to be sent as recorded in the Antioch church (Acts 13) or that the churches today have sought to turn a deaf ear on the call to be sent forth as missionaries. More often than not, young people are ready and willing to respond to the call to become missionaries but it’s not without obstacles. It will surprise you to know that the major challenge to these young people is disapproval from parents or unpleasant comments from family and friends. One of FHI’s young missionaries serving among the Nanumbas had a similar encounter during a short visit to the family (real names withheld in the conversation below).
“Your students have resumed school and you have come down to Accra” Eric quizzed.
“I am no longer teaching as a National Service personnel but I volunteer to teach them anytime I am around. Besides, I did not write the teachers licential exams, so I couldn’t apply. I am a missionary and I pastor a church” Chris replied.
“Does it come with pay?” Eric asked.
“No but I receive a monthly allowance for my upkeep” Chris replied.
Eric starts lamenting;
“Now we don’t only do the work of God oo, we work alongside with it. The church you are pastoring is not your church, how will you get the money to chop. You are a young man and you have to live a good life. See even the house your brother is building, it is money. Be there telling me you are doing God’s work. Is it God’s work we will chop,” Eric retorted.
“Who said I am not living a good life?” Chris asked Eric.
“You read a very good program, computer Science in school oo. Do not throw it away” Eric resounded in the hearing of Chris.
Chris and Eric have been good friends. They both lived in the same neighbourhood for a long time from their childhood. Eric read Electrical engineering in Accra Technical University. Eric had secured a job at a construction company whilst Chris was still in the University. Later, Chris graduated from school and served as a middle school teacher during his National Service in Northern Ghana. He joined a mission agency and served as a missionary alongside his duties as a school teacher because the community in which he taught was predominantly Islamic in nature.
Eric’s expressed feeling towards Chris indicates that Chris was wasting his life as a young man missionary in the service of God.
How could Chris explain himself to Eric? Anytime Chris says, he is working for the Lord, Eric seemed to show no interest.
Could the God of the universe not look after His workers?
The One who owns all the silver and gold. Is He incapable of paying His workers?
To every labour there is a reward. And the labourer is worthy of his wages.
God is more than able to closely cater for all his people far more than we can think or imagine.
What conception do people hold concerning those who dedicate their time to the service of God? Could it be that their thinking is that; If you serve God, you will be poor? Hmm, what an erroneous mentality assigned to the Capability of the Able God.
Wealth and riches are in the house of the righteous and his righteousness endures forever. He gives us all things for our enjoyment and He satisfies our mouths with good things.
Could this be the reason most of the youth don’t want to have anything doing with serving God as missionaries?
Could this be the thought of many parents when their children tell them they want to be missionaries?
Do you want to waste your life? is the next question that runs in the minds of people.
Truly, “it is God’s work, we go chop” for He died for everyone so that those who receive His new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ. Living for Christ as a missionary is not a waste of life or a journey of becoming poor.
God pays and He really pays well to show forth His Ability to cause waters to flow even in the desert place.
May God have mercy and establish His Kingdom business in the hearts of men who are into missions assignments.
Leave a Reply