DIRECTOR'S BLOG

Dr. Sam Martin

“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Matthew 6 v 21.

During a recent visit to Guatemala, and seeking to respond to the tremendous needs in Haiti following Hurricane Matthew, my heart became heavy because it seems so many no longer have a passion to care or share. Churches are putting building programs and the like above Missions, that is, the fulfillment of the Commission of Christ.

At our staff retreat in Guatemala, as I shared what was happening in North America, I said: “helping the poor, feeding the hungry, sponsoring a child and the like, is not an economic issue but a heart issue” and I believe that! If our hearts are right, if they are filled with the love of Jesus and they should be (Romans 5 v 5: For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.) we would care and share regardless of what we have! Really giving and sharing is a spiritual issue, not an economic issue.

Away back in 1901 a Missionary Conference was held in New York designed to understand what was happening with regard to Missions. Following that conference Andrew Murray wrote a tremendous book entitled ‘The Key to the Missionary Problem.’ And in this blog I want to simply record some of the statements made in that book, trusting that God’s people will be healed from the heart disease that is spreading through the Church today. Consider the following words:

* To the Pastor belongs the privilege and responsibility of solving the foreign missionary problem – if there are churches that do not give and pray for foreign missions, it is because their pastors are falling short of the command of Christ.

* Missionary advance depends upon the spiritual life.

* Consecration and the evangelization of the world go together.

* Failure in caring, giving, praying and living for Missions is owing to a weak, superficial spiritual life

* Seek the deepening of the spiritual life, and missionary consecration will follow.

There is of course much more, and such statements need to be carefully examined, but I believe they help us understand that there is a ‘heart problem today with the Church.’

The great English cricketer, CT. Studd, a man who gave up his inheritance to serve Christ, said something I conclude with:

“If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.”

Two little lines I heard one day,

Traveling along life’s busy way;

Bringing conviction to my heart,

And from my mind would not depart;

Only one life, twill soon be past,