Day 19

 The Demands of Doctrine

 

“Either God or an idol,” said a great Christian.  Godlessness is the evil that grips the world, the great enemy. Men are in bondage to the State, to the fear of death, to success, to the future.  They are in bondage to futility.  If you had revealed to you the cure for cancer, would you not be filled with a great desire to spread it into every village and city in this wide world?  When you thought of the fear, the pain, and the blighted lives, would you not say about cancer what Paul said about the Gospel, “Woe is me if I do not spread the cure for cancer!”

So it is with the Gospel.  The Good News of Jesus Christ has been entrusted to us.  It is not we who are great;  it is the Gospel that is great.  It is not we who have the power; it is the Gospel that has the power.  We have an enemy to fight and  a Lord to proclaim every time we speak, plan, or draw up a budget.  And I pray that you all may help your churches to be great missionary churches.  We are renewed by prayer, by thought, and by a great sense of the purpose for which the Church exists.  We are renewed by venturing out for the Lord.

And Jesus went about all the cities and village, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.  But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.  Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest is plenteous, but the labourers are few; pray ye therefor the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.  ~ Matthew 9:35–38

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