86 Christians killed and 146 injured.
Numbers that I cannot get out of my head. They flash over and over and over in my mind as I sit in America, "the land of the free and the home of the brave". I'm your average college student. I like to drink coffee, spend more time with my friends talking about the most random things rather than studying. I attend a small, private Southern Baptist university in the Bible Belt and I thank God for the opportunity to invest four years of my life here. I sit in classrooms all day and study how to understand the Bible and how to share the gospel in a cross-cultural setting effectively. This is my life. I enjoy the comfort that I get to experience on a daily basis.
I often need a reminder that it is crucial to be educated nowadays.
Maybe, just maybe, we put the emphasis on the wrong education though. Maybe if we spent more time in God's Word, we might be a little more passionate about the people around us. Maybe if we are spiritually educated, it will transform our lives. I don't like to admit it sometimes, but the thought of transformation kind of freaks me out a little bit. To admit that I have flaws, to admit that I need to change so that Jesus can be evident in me, to admit that I am so so weak- that makes me sink into my chair.
Today, my heart hurts. It aches. As I sat in class today, I couldn't help but to think of the 86 lives that were lost because they chose Jesus. I have news for you--- THAT IS ONLY ONE PLACE! Every single day, people are giving their lives for the cause of seeing people reached for Jesus.
One of my heroes, Lottie Moon, once said, "How many there are ... who imagine that because Jesus paid it all, they need pay nothing, forgetting that the prime object of their salvation was that they should follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ in bringing back a lost world to God."
When you make yourself available for transformation, the Holy Spirit is going to make you so uncomfortable.
Conviction+Confession+Commitment=Transformation
He will take your ordinary, everyday life and it will become a radical, transformed, extraordinary life.
I'm convinced that as we spend more time allowing God to chisel away at our weaknesses that He replaces it with boldness. God's desire for your life is not to sit in a comfortable building everyday working your way up the corporate ladder so that you can have the nicest house with a fancy car. God's desire for your life is that your heart would break for the people that you see everyday. That the people next to you in class will burden your heart. That the people you see in the drive-thru window at Starbucks every morning on your way to work will take precedence over getting to work a few minutes early.
I'm convinced that we are called to live life like Lottie Moon, Hudson Taylor, William Carey, Paul, and Noah. Ordinary people who aligned themselves with the Holy Spirit and were transformed!
You are no different.
The moment that you decide to press into God's Word, things will become difficult. Stand firm, though. He has the victory!
Pakistan, China, India, Korea, USA, you name it, someone is daily putting Jesus first and laying down their life for the sake of the gospel.
Will you do the same?
What will it take to break your heart for what breaks His?
When will you choose to go, whether that's right where you live or to another nation, when will you GO and MAKE DISCIPLES?
All I know is that I choose Jesus. I will choose Jesus until my dying breath just as the people in Pakistan have done. Just like some of the most well-known missionaries have done. I choose Jesus because only he can take something filthy like me and transform me into his image so that I may be a vessel into making himself known.
May we ponder on these words of Lottie Moon.
"The needs of these people press upon my soul, and I cannot be silent. It is grievous to think of these human souls going down to death without even one opportunity of hearing the name of Jesus...Once more I urge upon the consciences of my Christian brethren and sisters the claims of these people among whom I dwell. Here I am working alone in a city of many thousand inhabitants, with numberless villages clustered around or stretching away in the illuminate distance: how many can I reach?"
How many will you reach?
86 Christians killed and 146 injured.
What will you do with these numbers?
