{"id":18496,"date":"2019-11-17T15:30:26","date_gmt":"2019-11-17T07:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/?p=18496"},"modified":"2019-11-17T15:30:26","modified_gmt":"2019-11-17T07:30:26","slug":"missions-a-burden-for-missions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/?p=18496","title":{"rendered":"MISSIONS: A Burden For Missions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>DR Zhang Mukai said: \u201cYou may say that you have no burden in becoming missionary, but you can\u2019t say you don\u2019t have burden to do missions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Missions are God\u2019s heart\u2019s desire. Without missions, there would be no church. Since the beginning of 20th century, about 209 foreign missionaries were sent to Sarawak to conduct missionary work in education, finance and social concern. They stayed long and became one with the local people doing what Jesus commissioned, bearing remarkable spiritual fruits for the Lord. That is one reason why there are now so many churches in Sarawak with a large Christian population. We have to remember their devotion and submission and follow their footsteps. So, what are your excuses for not joining missions work? We are only carrying on the Great Commission of Christ.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen Jesus came to them and said, \u2018All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.\u2019\u201d(NIV Mathew 28:18-20)<\/p>\n<p>This authority of Jesus had been despised by the world until being nailed to the cross. But He rose from the dead and was given by God the Father the ultimate authority to rule the universe, heaven and earth. The word \u201cTherefore\u201d is a linking word to the action verb \u201cgo\u201d, a continued action to be carried out to the nations and people groups. How do we do it?<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #008000;\">Go<\/span> <\/strong><br \/>\nAll born-again Christians should actively participate in cross-cultural ministry. We have the best news in the world and the best thing we can do to others is to share with them at all costs.<\/p>\n<p>When I was doing missions work in Cambodia, a fellow Cambodian wanted me to preach the gospel to his villagers. He said, \u201cThere isn\u2019t a church there and neither a Christian. All of them are Buddhist or Pantheism adherents.\u201d Without hesitation I went there to tell them the Good News. Although I didn\u2019t find any diamond or honey there, in *the eyes of God they are all diamonds and honey.<\/p>\n<p>We reached out to around 200 children during the short-term missions. It was their very first time to hear gospel stories, hymns and that Jesus died on the cross for their sins. Through the women\u2019s ministry, there were nine women who opened their hearts to receive Jesus Christ to be their Lord and Saviour. If we had not responded to this Macedonian Call, none of them would have heard the gospel.<\/p>\n<p>There are about 2.1 billion people who have not heard of Jesus. It is our responsibility to go to tell them the good news. In fact, the minute you are reading this, there are unbelievers leaving this world without knowing Jesus. Therefore, we have to respond to Jesus\u2019 Great Commission with more enthusiasm. Jesus said, \u201cThe harvest is plentiful but the workers are few\u201d and \u201cWho is willing to go?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #008000;\">Baptism<\/span> <\/strong><br \/>\nAccording to statistics, there are about 6,900 unreached people groups. Most of them are found within the 10\/40 Window which include India (2034), China (456), Pakistan (435), Bangladesh (339), and Nepal (328). These people do not know the true God, living in emptiness, fear and insecurity. They need genuine peace and the source lies in our Saviour Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n<p>In the 50s, five American missionaries set out to preach the gospel to the Auca people in South America and they were all killed. When the people killed these missionaries, they discovered that these missionaries had guns but none of the village people was hurt. They then realized that these five missionaries were not bad people because they could easily have defended themselves and shot at them. Owing to this incident, this part of history was re-written. The wives of these martyrs came with other missionaries to these people and through them many Auca were converted to Christ, turning away from evil and sinful ways to become new creations.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #008000;\">Teaching<\/span><\/strong><br \/>\n\u201cTeaching them to obey what Jesus had taught\u201d is Disciple-making in other words, so that the followers of Christ become more Christ-like. This is actually a mission for every follower of Christ.<\/p>\n<p>In my missionary work I have engaged a lot in nurturing the believers. For new believers I do one to one coaching. For students I do Bible studies to explore the Christian faith. In addition, I also arrange enhancement training, leading them to have a better understanding of the biblical truth and to be rooted in the Word of God. We also work together with\u201cGood Man Organisation\u201d to train the male students to become a better person. Those who have been trained are able to bravely share their faith in their work place, in schools and at home.<\/p>\n<p>Dr John Sung once said: \u201cWhen we go to heaven, we can\u2019t bring anything with us, but the souls of many. Can you show people the way to heaven?<br \/>\nWe Christians are obligated to carry out the Great Commission. If we do not take up the responsibility, who will?<\/p>\n<h6><span style=\"color: #008000;\">By Timothy Tiang<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #008000;\">Missionary to Cambodia<\/span><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DR Zhang Mukai said: \u201cYou may say that you have no burden in becoming missionary, but you can\u2019t say you don\u2019t have burden to do missions.\u201d Missions are God\u2019s heart\u2019s desire. Without missions, there would be no church. Since the beginning of 20th century, about 209 foreign missionaries were sent to Sarawak to conduct missionary [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48980,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[183,191,10],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18496"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}