Gospel for Asia Blogger: Running the Race

About a week ago, I was accepted as a blogger for Gospel for Asia (GFA). This means I am simply joining them in telling stories through my blog. Over the next year, I'll post new stories/videos/photos. In total, you will read 40 different stories provided by Gospel for Asia. I can't tell you when I'll write, but I will do it.

I will share real stories of men, women, and children all over the globe encountering Christ. I'll provide real statistics and realities of the world's need for Jesus and ask you to remember our brothers and sisters in Christ who are being martyred because of their deep surrender to God's will and desire to see it be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Let me be clear.

1. It's not about me. 
I'm not doing this just because I love East Asia nor am I doing it because I am often known as the girl who talks about East Asia too much. That's not who I am. I'm a daughter of the High King who simply has a deep longing for Him to be known in all hearts. More importantly, Jesus, a man yet fully God, encountered and conquered death because he had (and continues to have) a deep longing to know me.

I'm choosing to challenge each of us (myself included) to dedicate some of our time & finances as well as our prayers to our brothers and sisters desiring to go to school or be a missionary in their country but lack the resources and finances to do so. I'm choosing to be a voice for those without one because they have yet to be awakened to the life and light of the Gospel.

2. It's not about you. 
Your heart may or may not be stirred to giving financially or praying for these men and women. You could end up partnering with GFA and maybe even be sent as one of their laborers. But it's not about how burdened you feel or how passionate you are.

God's people are responsible "to make a definite attempt to render the evangelization of the world..." (C.T. Studd). Our mission: to bring the Gospel to those who are without it and teach them as Christ teaches us (Matthew 28:18-20) through the Bible and empathize with them through our own stories and experiences with Christ. Together as the global church, we must make a definite attempt to find the lost and/or provide for and equip those who God has called to search for the unreached. The unreached are not unreachable.

The unreached are absolutely reachable. But they have not yet had an outstretched arm as an ambassador for Christ showing them the way as Christ shows His church the way. Your partnership and prayers could be the way they encounter Jesus for the first time.

But even then...it's not about what YOU will do.

3. It's about what God has already done
Christ stretched out both of His arms on the cross and in that, made a definite and successful attempt at rendering the redemption of our souls. Today, as Christ followers whose eyes have been opened and whose hearts have been awakened, we are to walk into such a calling not with obligation, but with joy in our hearts. 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 says:

"If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come. all this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ god was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of  reconciliation. Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

4. It's about what Jesus will come back to finish
Hebrews 12:1-2 says

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God."

The great cloud of witnesses is NOT the people around us on earth who are watching us, expecting us to live up to the calling God has given us. This cloud of witnesses? They are the men and women who have gone before us and finished their leg of the race. Now they are in the stadium of heaven cheering us on and asking us to look to their successes, failures and mistakes to help us run our race. Most importantly, Jesus continues to remind us to look to HIM and fix our eyes on HIM because the result of the race has already been determined

C.T. Studd once said:

"The God of Heaven will fight for us, as we for Him. We will not build on the sand, but on the bedrock of the sayings of Christ, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against us. Should such men as we fear? Before the whole world, aye, before the sleepy, lukewarm, faithless, namby-pamby Christian world, we will dare to trust our God; we will venture our all for Him; we will live, and we will die for Him, and we will do it with His unspeakable singing aloud in our hearts. We will a thousand times sooner die trusting only in our God, than live trusting in man. And when it comes to this position, the battle is already won, and the end of the glorious campaign in sight."

It is my hope and prayer for me that as I blog, my heart would be stirred to love the lost, and to pray for those that suffer far greater than I can imagine because they do not have Jesus. It's my hope and prayer for you, that your heart would be stirred to be a part of this every day in some way, that the way you live your your life would change for God's purposes.

Will you dare to trust our God and venture your all for Him regardless of where you are and what you're doing? Will you choose to be a part of this until you reach the finish line? The time will come sooner than we think to pass on the baton of the Gospel to the next generation in the race. Until that time comes, it is our duty to run the race with joy set before us.