Following on from the helpful questions that were raised yesterday morning from Isaiah 42:The mission organisation Crosslinks ran a campaign a couple of years ago with the slogan, 'She's well-fed, educated and may die tomorrow without Jesus.' That, in a nutshell, is the issue.
The difficulty is, you can show pictures of poor people, hungry people, homeless people, orphans, earthquake victims, flood victims. But you can't show pictures of people without Christ. The former, rightly, are heart-wrenching. But the latter, unseen condition is the more serious one. Life on earth, or eternity: where will we focus our efforts?
We must not, of course, be hardened to the desperate needs we see. But the most critical need is for people to hear the life-saving gospel of Jesus. That must drive our vision, time and giving. We mustn't lose our focus because of needs that can be seen. And sometimes big needs can become the enemy of the biggest - if they distract us from the commission Jesus gave us:
"Go and make disciples of all nations."
