Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel’s sake, except one who will receive one hundred times as much now in the present age—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions—and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last, first.”
Mark 10:29–31
A thought that has weighed on me lately has come from contemplating my level of commitment to the Great Commission. When a missionary leaves home, family, comfort and security to carry the gospel, the sacrifice is obvious. They cross borders, learn languages, endure loneliness and often unsafe conditions, and often live with uncertainty. And while most of us know that we are either "Goers" or "Senders" I think the church in North America at large has forgotten that sending is also a calling to sacrifice.
E. M. Bounds wrote, “Prayer is pressed on the Church for laborers to be sent into the harvest of the Lord. The harvest will go to waste and perish without the laborers, but the laborers must be God chosen, God sent, and God commissioned. But God does not send these laborers into His harvest without prayer. The failure of the laborers is owing to the failure of prayer. The scarcity of laborers and the harvest is due to the fact that the Church fails to pray for the laborers according to His command.”
I believe that those who are going should be supported by equally committed senders who invest in the same goals with the same level of sacrifice. True partnership means shared cost. Not everyone is called to cross an ocean, but every believer can enter the sacrifice.
The missionary goes in obedience, and the Church sends in obedience. Both stand before the same Lord, serve the same mission and share responsibility for the same harvest. May our support reflect the seriousness of their calling and the worthiness of Christ, for whom they gladly go.
Joe Ensley