In "Radical," David Platt writes:
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In Romans 1:14-15, Paul talks about being a debtor to the nations. He literally says, "I am in debt to the Jews and Gentiles." The language is profound. Pail is saying that he owes a debt to every person on the face of the planet. Because he is owned by Christ, he owes Christ to the world.
Every saved person this side of heaven owes the gospel to every lost person this side of hell. We owe Christ to the world-to the least person and to the greatest person, to the richest person and to the poorest person, to the best person and to the worst person. We are in debt to the nations. Encompassed with this debt, though, in our contemporary approach to missions, we have subtly taken ourselves out from under the weight of a lost and dying world, wrung our hands in pious concern, and said, "I'm sorry. I'm just not called to that."
The result is tragic. A majority of individuals supposedly saved from eternal damnation by the gospel are now sitting back and making excused for not sharing that gospel with the rest of the world.
But what if we don't need to sit back and wait for a call to foreign missions? What if the very reason we have breath is because we have been saved for a global mission? And what if anything less than passionate involvement in global mission is actually selling God short by frustrating the very purpose for which he created us?
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What strikes me most about this passage is 2 things:
1. This debt we owe the world as children of God, as saved ones this side of heaven, to every lost person this side of hell. What a burden and yet what a privilege to be a child of God.
2. This concept that we are still here because we've been saved for a global mission. I think this goes back to that question/concept people have sometimes about why we don't go straight to heaven when we start a personal relationship with Christ. I think of that verse in 2 Peter 3:9, "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is
patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to
repentance."
Now please don't see this post as a preachy Go! Yes, I am here in Argentina, that was my way to go, but I encourage each of us to interpret the "go" as God calls it fitting to your life. You are to be obedient as God call you to be. For me -a single person with no strings attached- it was moving overseas, but with families, persons with large debt, it can look different.
Maybe we can't all physically go, maybe we can't all financially give, but we all can pray for global missions.
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