Doing Missions When Dying Is Gain

Peru student missionary dies in bus accident
Gregory Gomez IV, 22, a student missionary serving in Peru for the summer through the International Mission Board, was killed in a bus accident July 5. Another IMB student missionary and a Peruvian translator received minor injuries. Gomez was serving on the REAP (Rapid Entry Advance Plan) South Team. He had been traveling around southern Peru researching unreached people groups. Originally from Natchez, Miss., Gomez was living just outside St. Louis, Mo., prior to his service. He is survived by his parents, Elida and Gregory Gomez III, of Glen Carbon, Ill., and two sisters. - IMB E-Letter
Listen to John Piper's Sermon-"Doing missions when dying is gain".


Before we listen to this sermon, are we prepared to leave with a deeper commitment to deny ourselves and rejoice in the path that God is preparing us for?
After listening to this sermon, we need to ask ourselves has it changed us?
Has it changed our outlook on life?
Has it caused us to want to conform to the will of God in all things?
Is Christ so valuable to us that no loss we experience for His sake will feel like losing in the end?
Father, May this young man's life be an example to the young and old, right here in America, to boldly go out into the nations proclaiming Your Name.
May You offer comfort to Mr. Gomez's parents and siblings.
May they be reminded that "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for You and the Gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields — and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.
May they rejoice knowing that their son has glorified You, their Father.
Thank you Lord for Gregory Gomez IV a young man who did not waste his life.
Amen

The Untragic Death of Linda Lipscomb!

After 45 years together raising two children, spoiling two grandchildren and serving God overseas in two countries, J.P. Lipscomb said goodbye to his wife, Linda, on Feb. 14.

------------------------------------------------------The following quotes can be found at the International Mission Board's web site. They have been taken from an article about a lady who recently passed due to complications that resulted from injuries sustained in a bus accident in Asia. She was 63, retired and living the life that she had dreamed of since she was 16. She didn't waste her life. She almost did. But she didn't.

Many would say that Linda's death was a tragedy. However after reading John Piper's book "Don't Waste Your Life", I have a better understanding of what tragedy looks like. Piper writes, "I will tell you what a tragedy is. I will show you how to waste your life. Consider this story from the February 1998 Reader's Digest: A couple `took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, play softball and collect shells. . . .' Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgment: `Look, Lord. See my shells.' That is a tragedy.

We need to be asking ourselves, are we wasting our lives? Are we proclaiming the Name of our King like Linda did? Are we desiring that His Name be known throughout the world? Are we willing to give our resources to see this goal reached? Are we praying without ceasing, desiring that the lost know who He is? Are we willing to go?

Oh, God, please make make my heart like this lady's; a reflection of You. Allow me also to die, glorifying your Name as she did. May I too die in a state of joy. May I delight in knowing that I was able to display forgiveness to an entire city, a forgiveness that reflects and points to you, as this woman of God did. LORD, thank you for Linda Lipscomb. Tell her that I can't wait to shake her hand when I get there, letting her know what an encouragement that her example of You was to me. No, tell her that I can't wait to wrap my arms around her in a grateful, thankful, God honoring, embrace, expressing my joy in You, through her. Thank You for her obedient desire to be a gatherer of souls and not of seashells. Lord, send more people like Linda Lipscomb into the harvest field!

"God created us to live with a single passion: to joyfully display his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life. The wasted life is the life without this passion. God calls us to pray and think and dream and plan and work not to be made much of, but to make much of him in every part of our lives." -John Piper

Read the article HERE

The Lipscombs were retirement age and members of James Memorial Baptist Church in Gadsden, Ala., when they responded to a call to serve overseas.

“We would get a text message from them: ‘Another member added to the family today,’” said Julie McClendon,* a friend in their area.

Someone asked J.P. what language he and Linda spoke. His answer was “love.”

“Send us someplace nobody wants to go,” J.P. said.

READ-John Piper's book "Dont Waste Your Life". You can read it on line HERE.

Mission Mondays

Lottie Moon
1840- 1912
Baptist missionary to China

"We westerners can make things but we cannot make God. God is the creator, and believing him means having him in your heart."
This is the main teaching that stuck in the minds of many Chinese, when Lottie dedicated her life to serving Christ in China. Lottie was born on December 14, 1840, in a small town in Virginia. Her family was very wealthy, and her mom was a dedicated Christian, but Lottie did not show any interest in the things of God. After her father died, Lottie decided to go to Hollins College, where she was an excellent student. One night, some of her friends invited her to a mission conference at their church. Lottie was quite reluctant to go, but decided to for her friends' sake. That night, Lottie met God, and asked him into her heart.

Lottie had become very interested in missions, and decided that she wanted to devote herself as a fulltime missionary to China. Two years, on September 1, 1873, after she graduated from college, Lottie left for China. She started her work in the city in Ton chow, which is in Northern China. It was very hard to get acquainted with the people, because of the language and culture differences, she even started baking cookies for the kids, but the kids were told that the cookies had some kind of disease. Finally, they started eating them and Lottie became known as the "cookie lady". Lottie would write almost everyday to the United States telling them about the many adventures in her life then, and asking them for help and prayers. Her letters were published in the mission's papers, and many ladies became interested in foreign missions through that.

Lottie decided she would rather work in a rural area because the people in those areas were much more friendlier than the people in the cities. She visited little villages around Ton chow. The Baptist Mission back in the United States decided to send a couple ladies to help Lottie, which was good news, because it meant that Lottie could go on furlough. When everything was ready to her to go on furlough, two men walked up to her and told her about their town, Pintow, and urged her to go and teach heir people about eternal life. Lottie immediately gave up her furlough and went to Pintow. She worked very hard traveling from village to village, telling people about Christ, and Christianity spreading rapidly throughout those areas praised her efforts. She did continue to write the Baptist Mission, but in that time there were many crises and China was under famine and epidemics. At that same time, the mission was under a financial crisis and there was no money to help Lottie. Lottie decided to stop eating because she felt there was not enough food to go around. She soon became ill, and was sent back to the United States, but the boat stopped Kobe harbor in Japan, where she died on December 24, 1912.

Lottie was honored by many missions all around the United States, and the Southern Baptist have an offering called the "Lottie Moon Christmas Offering", which is an offering used solely for foreign missions.

Mission Mondays-A Shift Of Balance

A quote by Philip Jenkins author of
The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity
Over the past century . . . the center of gravity in the Christian world has shifted inexorably southward, to Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Already today, the largest Christian communities on the planet are to be found in Africa and Latin America. If we want to visualize a “typical” contemporary Christian, we should think of a woman living in a village in Nigeria or in a Brazilian favela. As Kenyan scholar John Mbiti has observed, “the centers of the church’s universality [are] no longer in Geneva, Rome, Athens, Paris, London, New York, but Kinshasa, Buenos Aires, Addis Ababa and Manila.” (p. 2)

Read Chinese missionaries to Islam, Heavenly Man, Back to Jerusalem and Here

Mission Mondays

THREE realms where our spiritual growth will be hampered if we choose to be worldly Christians by Peter Wagner.

You can reject missions if you are a Christian. But the consequences are clear:

You will find yourself sitting on the bench while you could be in there playing the game...missions are on the cutting edge of excitement in in the Christian life. Being left out means a dull existence as a child of God. It is less than God's best for you.





You will lose authenticity as a Christian. You say that Jesus is your Lord, but yet you will be failing to obey Him at a crucial point. Another word for that is hypocricy.

You will be poorly prepared for that judgement day when what we have done here on earth will be tested by fire and only the gold, silver, and precious stones will survive (1 Corinthians 3:12-15)

Mission Mondays

Read the Stepchilds post "Taking Advantage".