Lord’s Day Meditation – A Wider View
Though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ (Col. 2:5).
It is so easy, in Christian service, with the intensity of urgent demands all around us, to become very narrow in our focus. To think about our little group and all its blessings and challenges. We need to do that, of course, but we must also work at being true global Christians, with an interest in what God is doing in other places.
Paul, of course, had a special reason to watch what was happening in various local churches. He was a missionary and church planter. The Lord had used him to start many of the local congregations to which he wrote. Like John Wesley, he could say, “The world is my parish,” and he speaks of his “deep concern for all the churches” (II Cor. 11:30).
But a lack of travel or wide personal involvement elsewhere does not let us off the hook. Every local assembly needs to be a strong supporter of world missions. Even when finances do not permit a large monetary investment, we can pray, we can write to missionaries, we can welcome them and show them hospitality when they visit. They will not be the only ones to benefit from this. We will too!
That wider view is expressed in Anne Ortland’s 1966 hymn which says,
The vision of a dying world
Is vast before our eyes;
We feel the heartbeat of its need,
We hear its feeble cries.
28 June 2009 @ 7:57 am
In 1966 little did Anne Ortland realize how the vast dying world could be placed before our eyes instantly via internet. To observe their needs and cries, it’s a click away…may that ease never weaken your vision in Canada nor mine in Brazil.
Great job on your site Bob!!! “Parabens”
Tim R.
28 June 2009 @ 8:50 am
Thanks Tim. I often think of my mother, born in 1908. That is just over a century ago, but there was no radio or television then, let alone anything like a Worldwide Web. In her nineties, when she heard of some new scientific development, she’d say, “It’s like something out of Buck Rogers!” We have many tools to work with that early servants of Christ did not have. They are wonderful. But we need to be alert to both the dangers and the responsibilities they bring.