What do you do when you have such a burden for one place and God calls you to another. Well, as I heard from someone I highly respect today, “Your heart is big enough to have room for that original burden and have room left over for the new place as well.”
That is so true. As we’ve traveled around the world, there are, of course, places that have cried out to me of their need. Spain is one of those places. The scarcity of the true gospel and the hardness of hearts is a challenge that no one can take lightly. I still pray for the Lord of the harvest to send workers there, and if God ever said to go back, I would.
But you see, now, the more we get to know Brazil and Brazilians, the more we sense the deep needs for the Gospel that exist here as well. On the surface, the needs appear to be different, but as we go deeper, we see it’s that same need that only the Gospel can meet. There are people here dying and going into eternity without Christ and it’s happening all around us. The middle class of Sao Paulo, to whom we know the Lord has called us, is less than 2% evangelized. That’s unfathomable.
Of course, I know in reality, each of us senses this need, wherever we may find ourselves in the world; from Tucson to Chiapas, from Harrisonburg to Tampa, or from Brazil to Spain. So, probably, the real question is, “What are we going to do about it?”
We are in this world, but we are not of this world. We are pilgrims passing through. We are ambassadors here on this planet and we are in the ministry of reconciling all people of this planet to Christ.
This makes it easy. Do I only share Christ in Bakersfield or Mexico? Absolutely not! We share Christ wherever and whenever the opportunity arises. In fact, we create opportunities. We must. You see, the answer lies in the fact that our hearts are big enough to have love for all people of this planet, not because of us, but because of God. He gives us a mandate, the Great Commission to which we are to be obedient. But more than that, He gives us that love for the lost that transcends anything we could possibly feel or muster on our own. So is our heart big enough? Yes, but only because God’s heart is.
“God, give us your heart for reaching the lost with the Good News!”
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