The Kingdom of God is not any one city or nation. It involves the entire world including every peo ple, land, tribe and nation. God does not want our charity but our choice. Most Christians decide on their prayer time by checking the day's activities and giving the Lord that which cannot be used for any other purpose. We have treated God as if He were knocking at the back door of our lives asking for a handout. When we have a special mission in our church I ask our busy peo ple to do for God and His church what they would do for themselves and their personal vacation. They should block time well in advance. Let nothing interfere. It is sad that we only give God what we are through with. We do the same thing with our stewardship. We do not give God the firstfruits or the best. We give Him the money we have left over after we have used all we want on ourselves. A young man had just arrived in India. He was walking along the banks of the Ganges and passed an Indian woman. In her arms was a fat, healthy baby girl. By the hand she was holding an anemic little boy. It was obvious he would not live very long. His body was contorted with disease. An hour la ter the young missionary returned. There stood the same woman with her boy. The fat, healthy baby girl, however, was gone. He asked her what had happened to the child. The tired mother said proudly, "I threw her into the river. It is part of my religion." The missionary was confused. It may have made little sense to ask but he said, "If you were forced to sacrifice one of your children why did you not
keep the healthy one?" She re sponded with a note of triumph, "Sir, our gods can have the best!" I do not know of any incident which points out such contrast more vividly. While we give God our charity the heathen give their gods first choice. Pagan religions demand the best of their follow ers. For generations we have been trying to do the work of spreading the Gospel around the world with the handouts of God's people and the leftovers of the church. Old pianos, used medical instruments, old clothes, old cars and old money. What a transformation there would be if we would keep the charity for ourselves and give God the choice. We can summar ize it in these four important words, "Not charity, but choice!" The Origin Have you ever thought about the qualifications of a missionary? What does he have to be and where does he come from? Basi cally his origin is not religion, but regeneration. In Philippians 3 we have a whole chapter based on the personal experience of Paul. In the first few verses he strikes a com parison between the religious man and the one who has been regen erated. The Apostle describes the one who is religious by three words: "dogs," "workers" and "concision." On the other hand the regenerated believer is spoken of as: "in Christ," no confidence in the "flesh" and "circumcision." The word "dog" was used by the Jews as a term of contempt for the Gentiles. Jewish people are very particular about their food. Certain items, according to law, Page 17
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