“To Preach Christ”
January 2023
A sold-out life surrendered to the life and longings of Christ can and does accomplish much for the Kingdom of God! Robert Moffett served as a church planting missionary for 49 years in South Africa (1816-1865). He learned the Tswana (SWA-nuh) language and ministered extensively among many communities as well as translating the Gospel of Mark into Tswana. The amount of people who were coming to Christ was so that he could not keep an accurate number. Yet, despite what God was doing in the regions around him, his heart was always to preach the Gospel in the regions beyond him (2 Cor. 10:16). He wrote in his journal: “Oh, that I had a thousand lives, and a thousand bodies! All of them should be devoted to no other employment but to preach Christ to these degraded, despised, yet beloved mortals.” No doubt he prayed for those who lived in the regions beyond him as he saw in the early morning light, “the smoke of a thousand villages–villages whose people are without Christ, without God, and without hope in this world.”
We see however, that Bro. Moffett had no extensive missionary training or experience before he and his wife, Mary, sought out the African shoreline wherein they would live out the life they had been given—one of which would bring the hope of Christ to those without hope in this world. Still, for them praying for the lost in remote lands was no substitute for pursuing those lands where they actually lived. Their praying matched their pursuits…and their pursuits matched Christ’s passions.
I trust that your church home is one which not only prays for missionaries but pleads with its people to embrace a sold-out life surrendered to the life and longings of Christ. There are those in the regions beyond you who yet have need to hear of the hope found in Christ!
A present-day remote Congolese Village Shown at right—————————————————————————————————-
Thank you for praying for missionaries and for pleading with others to go to these “beloved mortals!”
Only One Life,
Rodney Myers
GFF General Director