The Problem With Our Missionary Zeal - Part II

The second problem that affects our missio0nary zeal, according to Biblical Ministries Worldwide, was this: Christians have lost the purity battle somewhere along the way. The Laodicieans thought they were clothed in the finest of garments, the latest of styles and the best of fabrics – the best money could buy. But Jesus considered them naked. Why? Because they had not clothed themselves in the righteousness of Christ but in their own human righteousness

In Matthew 22:11-12, as Jesus told the parable of the wedding feast, He said:
11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. 12 So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

The issue is, we are like the children’s story of the Emperor’s New Clothes. We think we are decked out in our finest, but we are really spiritually naked. But the good news is, Jesus clothes us with His own righteousness. We are urged to buy gold from Him and (18) – “and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed.” And we’re clothed when we come to the cross in faith. Positionally, at salvation, we are righteous. But, yet, we need to learn to live in accord with our position.

But there is a further lesson for us in this. For we who are believers, we need to understand that where there is no purity, there is no power. Without moral purity, we are powerless to accomplish anything spiritual for God, which is why we are often so content to accomplish only the secular.

According to James P. Steel,
“It is not likely that you will go down in an instant, in one ill-directed moment of indiscretion. It is more likely that the leeches and ticks of impurity will attach themselves to you silently, one at a time, until the passion for purity has been drained from your spiritual veins.”

Little by little as you compromise with the world, your spiritual vitality will be robbed. And missionary zeal is usually the first to go. Are you letting the world suck zeal from you?

The third problem, according to Biblical Ministries Wordwide, is an eye problem,
We said: Christians have simply lost the desire – they’ve lost the vision of a lost and dying world. We simply don’t see, or don’t notice that there is a vast world filled with lost and dying people who need to hear about Jesus the Savior.

Jesus told us in John 4:35
“Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! “ Yet, we never lift our eyes to look

I doubt the Laodiceans looked. So Jesus wrote to them: (18) – “and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.” Friend, the eye of your soul may need healing. Apply the salve of God’s Word. Get your focus back on what God would have you see. The fields “are already white for harvest,” but who will do the reaping? Who will obey God’s call?

Even though the last command of Christ before He left this earth was to take the Gospel to furthest reaches of the globe, the number of missionaries for the task has been dwindling and the support for them has been dwindling because too few people have heeded the call of God on their life to act. Have you heard God’s call? Not that God is necessarily going to call you to Africa, or South America, or anywhere else, but have you heard Him call you to do anything? Something? We already said that the most cost effective way to do missions is to provide help, not go, but are you willing to do your part?

I came across an article that decries the lack of volunteers in missions. The title is, “Demystifying the Missionary Call.” It talked about how when a thriving, top-paying church has an opening for a senior pastor, literally hundreds of resumes flow in from pastors all over hoping they will be the one to be “called” to that church; while the cries of mission boards for volunteers fall on deaf ears. Almost no one responds. Do you wonder why that would be?

The article concluded: “Reduced to its barest essentials, a ‘missionary call’ is nothing more than obedience to a command.”

What command? How about this one:
Matthew 28:18-20
18 “And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’ Amen.”

What part of that can you fill?