It is the call of God that puts you into ministry, and it is the call of God that keeps you there. Circumstances will change, but the assurance that God has providentially placed you and given you a mission to fulfill. Every great servant of God has had a place and a people to which He has called them.

Our Commitment to Missions

Our commitment to missions must be driven by our love for God, rather than our love for people. Serving others, when fueled by feelings of compassion, will quickly grow tired, discouraged, and dissipate. It is the love of Christ that constrains us. We can only love others as God intends if we first love the Lord, our God, with all our hearts, souls, and minds. It is only then that we can love our neighbors as ourselves.

Deeds of compassion may be genuine, but they are often rooted in emotion and fueled by selfish ambition. Those acts of compassion may be meeting the secret needs of our own hearts, giving us a feeling of goodness, or assuaging our guilt. Compassion can dissipate when you discover that the person toward whom you felt compassion continues on in lifestyles and choices that perpetuate their situation.

Missionaries from the West often view host cultures and peoples through Western eyes and understandings and are moved to do something to help. Without understanding and care, that help can often perpetuate the problem instead of meeting needs. Compassion fades quickly when the Westerner learns that they have been “played” or that the people do not want their help. Compassion may be what gets your attention, but love for Christ is what keeps you going year after year.

But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.
Acts 26:16-18

Jesus appeared to Paul and announced, “I will make you a minister.” The word used was—‘huperete.’ This was the lowest of slaves in the Roman world, literally referred to as “an under-rower.” This was often someone taken from prison and forced into a slavery that meant certain death. He was chained to a bench in the bottom of a Roman warship, and there he would die. Jesus told Paul that he was calling him to a task to which he would be chained as a slave.

But there is a second term here that gives us further instruction—Witness, the Greek word for martyr. There is no difference between the two words: witness and martyr. A witness is willing to die for his witness. Every Christ-follower is commanded to be a witness.

While we are all commanded to witness, some are called to be a missionary or a pastor. This call begins with salvation and continues into a particular service.

This is a call that came out of eternity past, before the world began.  This is a calling of salvation and service. This call was put into motion by the incarnation of Christ, culminating in the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. God’s purpose for our lives comes from the sovereign mind of God and is made known to us.

Paul explains to Timothy that he was called before the foundation of the world (1 Tim 1). Paul had been called to be chained to a bench as a slave, a servant of God, expending his life for the fulfillment of God’s mission purposes.

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