SEARCHLIGHT
How are you helping missionaries who leave their home country to spread the Good News?
SCRIPTURE
Dear friend, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers and sisters, even though they are strangers to you. They have told the church about your love. Please send them on their way in a manner that honors God. It was for the sake of the Name that they went out, receiving no help from the pagans. We ought therefore to show hospitality to such people so that we may work together for the truth. 3 John 1:5-8 NIV
SPOTLIGHT
I think it was President Teddy Roosevelt who said, “Since becoming President, I have come to know that the finest of Americans we have abroad today are the missionaries of the Cross. I am humiliated that I am not finding out until this late day the worth of foreign missions and the nobility of the missionaries. Their testimony in China, for instance, during the war there, is beyond praise. Their courage is thrilling and their fortitude heroic.”
Dedicated people who leave their homeland, family roots, and comforts of home to carry out the Great Commission that Jesus Christ commanded are the most selfless people you will ever meet. They are to be honored and cared for by believers who cannot go to another part of the world to do the same. This is one of the messages the Apostle John conveyed in his third letter.
In the Scripture section above, John commended Gaius for being faithful in helping missionaries who came to his area to proclaim the Gospel. John’s emphasis is on believers helping missionaries. Traveling preachers had left all the comforts of home “for the sake of the Name.” [see Scripture above] They had no way of supporting themselves. Gaius had lived out his faith by being generously hospitable toward these dedicated itinerant ministers. He was not going out as a missionary, but he was helping them to go.
If you cannot go as a missionary, you can pray and pay. Jesus does not call every believer to leave home and become a missionary. Instead, He calls every believer to fulfill the Great Commission where he/she lives and to help those who are called to be missionaries. John commended Gaius for living out the adage “If you cannot go, you can pray and you can pay.” Are you living out this adage?
Where you cannot go in the world, your prayers and finances can support those who can go. When you do this, you become a partner in ministry with missionaries. During Jesus Christ’s ministry on earth, He was continually cared for by people who believed in Him. Your work at home can support the work of missionaries around the world. What a privilege.
When Jesus blesses you with a job, shelter, food, and much more, He invites you to become a companion to missionaries by 1, encouraging them with prayer, 2, entertaining them when they come home from a foreign country, and 3, expressing financial and practical support in any way so they can leave home to share the Good News. Encourage, entertain, and express. This is one very practical application of putting John’s letter into practice.
The bottom line is this: BELIEVERS HELP MISSIONARIES. Hospitality toward missionaries is expressing the love God has put into your heart. You become a missionary partner in sharing the truth.
SOMETHING TO DO
- Pray and ponder about how you can help people who are leaving home to spread the Good News of God’s love.
- Read the following passages of Scripture to get a fuller understanding of what it means to be hospitable. Hospitality is a quality that should mark all believers. It is so very important that Luke, Paul, Peter, and John speak about it. Read Acts 28:7; Romans 12:13, 16:23; 1 Timothy 3:2, 5:10; Titus 1:8; 1 Peter 4:9. In these passages mentioned, hospitality is something that should be extended to more than just missionaries. How well are you doing?
SOUL TIME PRAYER
Lord Jesus Christ, help me to understand how I should be hospitable. Forgive me for thinking that someone else will take care of missionaries who live such a selfless, self-sacrificing life. AMEN!