A missionary is one sent by Jesus Christ as Jesus Christ was sent by God. A missionary\u2019s purpose isn\u2019t serving the needs of humanity; it\u2019s obeying the command of Jesus: \u201cGo and make disciples of all nations\u201d (Matthew 28:19).<\/p>\n
The inspiration for the missionary\u2019s work lies behind, not before. Today, the tendency is to put the inspiration out front; we look forward to our own success. In the New Testament, the inspiration for doing God\u2019s work is found in Jesus Christ, in what he has already accomplished. The missionary\u2019s ideal is to be true to the Lord and to carry out his enterprises.<\/p>\n
Personal attachment to Jesus and his point of view is the one thing that must not be overlooked in the missionary\u2019s work. The great danger is in getting so wrapped up in people\u2019s needs that our sympathy drowns out God\u2019s call and overwhelms the meaning of being sent by Jesus. Humanity\u2019s needs are so enormous, and the conditions of human life so perplexing, that every power of mind falters and fails when confronted with them. It\u2019s easy to forget that the great reason for the missionary enterprise isn\u2019t educating people or meeting their needs but first and foremost obeying the command of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n
When looking back on the lives of missionaries who seem to have risen to every challenge and perplexity, we have the tendency to say, \u201cWhat wonderful wisdom they had! How perfectly they understood what God wanted!\u201d It wasn\u2019t human wisdom at all; the astute mind behind what they did was the mind of God. We give credit to human wisdom when we should give credit to divine guidance. If any man or woman seems to possess divine wisdom, it\u2019s because they were childlike and simple enough to trust the supernatural guidance of God.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A missionary is one sent by Jesus Christ as Jesus Christ was sent by God. A missionary\u2019s purpose isn\u2019t serving the needs of humanity; it\u2019s obeying the command of Jesus: \u201cGo and …<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":2336,"template":"","collection":[],"class_list":["post-2731","modern-classic","type-modern-classic","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/modern-classic\/2731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/modern-classic"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/modern-classic"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/modern-classic\/2731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"collection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collection?post=2731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}