STAMPS
in my prayer book T here are stamps in my prayer book. They are postage stamps — cancelled in post offices all over the world. They represent letters received from missionaries who are in hard and difficult places. So the stamps are in my prayer book. They remind me of missionaries in need of my prayers. It all started about 10 years ago, when a secondhand desk was purchased, and the dealer had neglected to remove some packets of used United States stamps in one of the drawers. I tried to sell them to a stamp collector merchant, but learned they had little value except to start new collectors. I bought a small stamp album and tried to induce my eight-year-old daughter to collect, but she was not interested. I decided to save what stamps I received on mail, and soon the stamp bug got into me. I began to learn something of the king of hobbies and the hobby of kings, as it is called. As I glanced through the album, I was reminded of school mates and missionaries our church helped to support in some of the countries listed. I dug out of my files some of the letters I had received from missionaries and removed the stamps to insert in my album. Then came the idea of connecting my interest in stamp collecting with more interest in missions. I decided to do more writing to missionaries in foreign lands. Some investigation revealed that missionaries—most of them— welcomed letters— even from persons they do not know. Some are so isolated they are glad to get mail from anyone. And when they have time they will answer. Inquiry from an interdenomi national mission office in Chicago that handled the support of several hundred missionaries in various parts of the world brought more encouragement to my project. This mission wanted to enlist prayer supporters for more of their missionaries. Starting with the names of missionaries supported by my church, I set aside time to write at least one letter per week. This has been continued for several years. Only a few mission aries have failed to respond. I have become more interested in the problems of the worker in a foreign land, and have given more to missionary work. I have prayed more for missionaries, for they are closer to me. Now I have a special stamp book for missionaries. It is at times like a prayer book. In this book is placed one stamped envelope from each missionary who has written to me since this project was started. As I look over the pages, I am reminded to pray for this one in the Belgian Congo, this one in Japan, this one in Costa Bica. The missionaries appreciate this remembrance. Some of them have to provide their own support, and after they are on the field for a period of time, people seem to forget them. They must make new friends to back their work. Missionary organizations in a church might also adapt this idea to stimulate interest in their missionaries. Charts might be displayed with stamps from thè various countries with which they correspond. Everything possible should be done to back up the work for those who go to the regions beyond. Stamps may help some to remember. — Robert Sherer Wilson
it help me to take the word “ everlasting” and put it into a rack like an inquisitor until I make it shriek out some other meaning. I cannot alter the stern fact, the awful reality of eternal punishment. To escape the fact of future pun ishment for their deeds, -unstable souls passionately embrace the be guiling hope of reincarnation. They feel there’s no need to worry about life or death now; in the next ex istence they’ll work the problems out, but right now they’ll live the way they want to. There’s something else that men want to get away from. And that’s the vacuum within their hearts that materialism has failed to satisfy. Souls are starved and hearts are vacant. And because “nature ab hors a vacuum,” men parallel the two sins Jeremiah spoke of con cerning his people—they turn away from the Lord, the fountain of liv ing waters, and hew out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water (Jer. 2:13). And it leaves them more thirsty than before. Spiritual thirst is a wonderful thing provided we can find the one who is the water of life, Jesus Christ, God’s Son. For He is the test for every man, for every church and for every system. And while Peter gave us the marks of any false system: immorality and cov etousness (2 Pet. 2:14), John gave us the test for any true system: “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false proph ets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God” (1 John 4:1,2). That’s the test of any false sys tem, or true system for that matter. What does it do with the person of Jesus Christ? What place is given to Him? Does Christ get the glory? Is He the one who is being glori fied or is it some individual or some system? “Hereby know ye the Spir it of God: Every spirit that con fesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God.” END.
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