Lottie Moon and a passion for missions.

I have a firm conviction that I am immortal til my work is done.
Lottie Moon  

I just listened to a sermon by Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary president Danny Akin based on Romans 12:1-2 and built around the life of Lottie Moon.  (Thank you, Dr. Hamilton, for bringing this audio file to my attention.)

This was a powerful presentation, and I hope you will find the time to download it and listen to it.  The conviction and courage found in quotes from this amazing woman’s letters stagger me.  I’d like to share four as a sampling of this Lottie’s heart for the Lord and the call to missions:

 Once more I urge upon the consciences of my Christian brethren and sisters the claims of these people among whom I dwell.  Here I am working alone in a city of many thousand inhabitants, with numberless villages clustered around or stretching away in the illuminated distance: how many can I reach?  It fills one with sorrow to see these people so earnest in their worship of false gods, seeking to work out their salvation by supposed works of merit with no one to tell them of a better way.  Then, to remember the wealth hoarded in Christian coffers!  The money lavished on fine dresses and costly living!  Is it not time for Christian men and women to return to the simplicity of earlier times?  Should we not press it home upon our consciences that the sole object of our conversion was not the salvation of our own souls, but that we might become co-workers with our Lord and Master in the conversion of the world?  (Published in the January 1888 “Foreign Mission Journal”)    

 

The harvest is very great, the laborers, oh! so few.  Why does the Southern Baptist church lag behind in this great work?… I think your idea is correct, that a young man should ask himself not if it is his duty to go to the heathen, but if he may dare stay at home.  The command is so plain: “Go.”  (November 1, 1873 letter to H.A. Tupper)

 

 I feel that I would gladly give my life to working among such a people and regard it as a joy and privilege.  Yet, to women who may think of coming, I would say, count well the cost.  You must give up all that you hold dear, and live a life that is, outside of your work, narrow and contracted to the last degree.  If you really love the work, it will atone for all you give up, and when your work is ended and you go Home, it will atone for all you give up, and when your work is ended and you go Home, to see the Master’s smile and hear his voice of welcome will more than repay your toils amid the heathen.  (Published in the August 1887 “Foreign Mission Journal”)

~ by jakeporter on December 14, 2007.