Recently I have attended midweek worship and Bible studies at a nearby organization in Afton, Virginia dedicated to supporting Christian outreach missions worldwide. Named Advancing Native Missions (ANM), I have learned their work, although not indigenous to any specific mainline Christian denomination, supports evangelistic efforts of countless groups around the globe whose principal motive is to make Christ known.  In a monograph which he entitled Thine Is the Kingdom, Dr. James S. Stewart, outlined what he termed the Basic Motive for Christian missions.  He begins with our Lord’s Commission: ‘Go ye and teach all nations’ as our missionary charter.  Then he asks, ‘suppose mutilation of the papyrus roll containing Matthew 28:19-20 had deprived us of the great commission, would the missionary challenge have been in doubt?  “Surely not!”, he writes, “For it is no single injunction that has given the Church its marching-orders.  The imperative is there, staring at us on every page of the Gospels, implicit in every word Jesus ever spoke, sealed forever by His death and resurrection:  ‘the expiation’ cries John, ‘for our sins, and not for ours only but for the whole world!....In the last resort, the one reason for missions is Christ.  He only is the motive, God’s presence in Him the one sufficient cause.... The fact is, belief in missions and belief in Christ stand and fall together....Thus it can never be the province of a few enthusiasts, a sideline or specialty of those who happen to have a bent that way.  It is the distinctive mark of being a Christian.  To accept Christ is to enlist under a missionary banner.  It is quite impossible to be (in the Pauline phrase) ‘in Christ’ and not participate in Christ’s mission in the world.”

My worship times with the ANM fellowship have been reminders of the koinonia of the early Church proclaiming the joyous Good News and victory of knowing Christ. 

       I have been reading the closing chapters of Acts and Paul’s final farewell to the saints in Ephesus.  He closes his valediction with them by commending them to God’s grace.   Once more, I call upon Dr. James S. Stewart’s exposition:

“Here is a gospel that shatters all human pretensions, and shames us for feeling better than other people—a gospel that says ‘You can’t earn a citizenship in Zion, not ever!  You can’t ever merit salvation.  Take it for nothing, or not at all!  That is grace – God’s initiative in Christ, offered freely to the undeserving....When David Livingstone was found dead on his knees in Central Africa, his diary was open before him, and the last entry was, ‘My Jesus, my Savior, my life, my all, anew I dedicate myself to Thee.’ New discoveries and dedications right on to the end!   There is no room in Christianity for arrested development of the soul which thinks it has found everything and settles down content in spiritual rigidity and petrification.  He is able to keep on building you up, from strength to strength, from character to character, from glory to glory – until at last his new creation is complete.”  From King Forever, James S. Stewart