Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Not made for time

At the moment I’m reading a book called Living in the Light of Eternity by KP Yohannan. It was given to me by the Newmans, a family in the States with a real heart for missions. The book starts out by challenging the reader to remember what's important in life. It then goes on to talk about what we are doing about those fundamental life issues, focusing on mission. At the moment I’m in the chapter entitled, ‘Bringing our hearts back into focus.’ One section which hit me is:

We are not made for time. We are created for eternity. Our life right now is simply a little classroom in which we are learning to be conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:29).

And what is the purpose of Christ’s life? Why did He come into this world? What did he live for? “To seek and save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). And the more we become like Christ, the more we too will make world evangelism top priority in our lives.

Do you see how everything else in life becomes so incidental when we gain this focus? Our clothes, our food, our hairstyles, our makeup, our bank accounts, our education, our degrees, our plans and ambition, our children, our spouses—all these things cannot be the most important things in life.

Missions is for all of us. I don't like it when churches put overseas missionaries on pedestals. We're all the same, you and me: we work for the same boss, God, and we have the same job, allowing ourselves to be conformed to the image of Christ. I like that we can work together at it from all over the world.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yohanan's book Revolution in World Missions changed my whole perspective about how mission should be done so glad to hear you have been inspired by him too. I've also read the book you mention but it didn't grab me half as much as Revolution.

Glad you can get a Christmas break too!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this, Dan. Powerful stuff.
Sarah W

Juliann said...

Arukiyomi, I'll check out that book once I've finished this one; thanks for the tip! Hope you're keeping well, Sarah...thanks for the comment.