Overseas Missionary

What is the purpose of a missionary? To evangelize to the broken. To share the Gospel with the needy. To introduce the Savior to the unsaved.

I can go on and on and on about being “overseas”, living as a missionary, having a part in God’s plan with the African people. But I’m not going to. I had a revelation yesterday that I think you need to hear.

I was talking to a dear friend yesterday via Facebook messaging (praise God for FB messaging!).  This friend is having some issues with a family member. One snippet that is sticking in my mind from what Friend said is this, “If you put me and (family member) overseas with a common purpose it wouldn’t make us get along.” It kind of made me stop and think for a minute before I made my reply.

First of all, you are overseas. In my eyes, you are overseas; from African’s eyes, you are overseas, from anybody who isn’t currently in North America, you are overseas.

The second thing I realized was this: if you are a Christian you do have a common purpose: making disciples. When you don’t get along with someone, when you don’t really care for someone, when someone rubs you the wrong way – you still have the common goal of making disciples. You do not need to be in Ethiopia, in Chile, in Ukraine to be doing what the Lord has commanded of those who love Him. Make disciples.

There are a lot of people with the mindset, “Oh, I could never live in another country to share the Gospel.” I have two things to say to that. 1.) If it’s the Lord’s will, you’ll go. 2.) GOOD! That means you have a heart for the people around you. Make disciples of them. They need the Gospel just as much as the unreached Gumuz people in Ethiopia.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say you’ve heard this kind of talk before. Talk of reaching out to those who don’t know Christ that are in your neighborhood. But I’ll bet (not literally bet) that you have not had someone who is sitting in Africa as a missionary telling you that it is EQUALLY important to share the Savior with those around you.

Get out of the mindset that you are not a missionary. You are. Missionaries are people that are on a ‘religious mission, especially one to promote Christianity’ (from Googling missionary).  There are people all around you are not living their lives for Jesus. Notice I did not say “are Christians?” Many people will claim Christianity, but they aren’t living it out. If that’s you, I’m calling you out as well – if you are going to claim to be a follower of Jesus, be a follower of Jesus. If you are truly following Jesus then  you are missionary where ever you are.