By a member of SEND’s Diaspora | North America team — As the ship left the wharf, two of its passengers shouted to those gathered to see them off, "May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering!"

Those were the words of the first Moravian missionaries who went to the West Indian island of St. Thomas in 1732. As the story goes, when they heard that the slave owners of the island were not going to allow them to come as missionaries to reach the slaves with the gospel, they volunteered to sell themselves into slavery. When I read that, I thought, “That’s a bit above my level of commitment.”

I need to ask myself, and perhaps you do, too: “To what lengths am I willing to go, so that people who have never heard the gospel story could hear it for the first time? Am I willing to be inconvenienced? Am I willing to give up a day or a weekend or a week night to go and share the love of Christ?”

Sometimes we are so busy just hanging on to what we have that we don’t even see the need beyond our own four walls. But Christ would have us lift our eyes and see that the harvest is ripe. Christ, in the midst of ordinary life, took the time to interact and share with people. He told stories that gave people a chance to see things a bit differently, a chance to think about things differently, because we all can fall into ruts. We can get so used to seeing and saying the same things day in and day out that we can miss what, or who, is passing right by in front of us. And who is passing by in front of us? Muslims who have never had a meaningful conversation about Christ with a Christian.

For those of us who struggle to sacrifice in order to share the gospel, here are some first steps to take:

10/10 Prayer Initiative

 
Your prayers launch missionaries out to unreached peoples and give them success through the power of the Holy Spirit. Subscribe to Intercede & SEND , our monthly global prayer calendar.  

• Download a free bookmark with daily themes to help you pray for your missionary friends and their children.