How I Was Called to the Field

 

“There are 143 million orphans around the world today. They are hungry, sick, scared and alone. They are in desperate need of advocates. And it’s my heart’s cry to stand for them, to rescue them, to offer them something beyond mere human compassion, something that will give them hope for this life and the life to come. This is God’s heart–His passion. He sees each one of those precious lives and He searches the whole earth to find someone who will stand in the gap for them. We are the Body of Christ. We are His hands and His feet. What do Christ’s hands and feet do? They bind wounds. They offer forgiveness. They set captives free. They heal the sick. They minister to children. They seek out the sinner. They drive out evil from the temple of God. They walk the road to Calvary. And they are pierced through that we might be saved.”

 

When the Lord did an amazing, transforming work in my heart and life two years ago, it was made very clear to me that my life was not my own and the Spirit of Christ now has claim upon me. I realized for the first time that I have a call upon my life; I have a job to do. He has called me to minister His love to those in need. And this sacred claim is the highest privilege we could ever receive. We can never repay what Christ did for us on the cross. But because He has made us His hands and feet to this world, we have the incredible opportunity to give to others the very same astounding, transforming love that He gave to us.

 

One of my good friends Molly went on a 3-month trip to Swaziland this past year with AIM. As she shared pictures and told me stories of how God moved in Africa, it was solidified in my heart to go. Where? I had no idea. When? God would have to orchestrate it–and He was more than faithful in doing so. However, I have realized something: bringing Kingdom starts here, in my hometown of Appleton, Wisconsin. Not all of us are called to pack up and move to a foreign mission field for 2 months. God has taught me a lot in the past year of what ‘bringing Kingdom’ looks like in the NOW: not worrying about what His will is for my life, but BEING His will to the world, which includes my brother, my uncle, my next-door neighbor, and the homeless woman downtown.

 

Ultimately, our act of worship is to offer our body to Him as a living sacrifice. This is not just sitting in our comfortable church buildings and singing about how much we love Him. It is demonstrating our love for Christ by practically giving it to those who desperately need it. James says, “If a brother or sister is naked or destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,’ but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” (James 2:15-17)