The Promise & The Word

Missionaries of God's Word
By Brendalyn Crudup Martin

In order to know God and His Word, we must study about Him. We must read His Word, the Bible, and lift up His name, for the scripture tells us “He is worthy to be praised.”

We are all ministers of Christ with certain rights and responsibilities and Jesus is the only intercessor we need. We can go to God, through Jesus, for our confession and petitions. When Jesus died on Calvary, we received the right to call upon God for our salvation. But we also have the responsibility to pray for others (the body of Christ)

Pray ye one for another

We must also learn to listen to the Lord. We hear God but don’t listen

Be ye doers of the word, not hearers only

We must also be willing to labor for the Lord and do God’s work. He lifted all of us to spread His message. Not just the men, but women and children also. All those who are called by His Name are Missionaries of His Word.

Therefore, we must learn to live for the Lord in such a way that the world knows we are going somewhere. We must walk on because somewhere the road will lift and the clouds will drift away.

In John 4:1-42, we learn about the Woman at the Well, and we get a glimpse of God's plan working in a woman whose sin had not only come between her and God, but between her and her whole community. In the one-on-one encounter between Jesus and the woman, Jesus neither avoids her sin, nor condemns her for it.

Jesus meets her at the well in the heat of the day because she has been shunned by the other women in the community who knew about her sin. She had made her living off men. While the other women came to the well in the morning, she had to come at noon, in the heat of the day. So when Jesus met her, she was at a moment when her sin could not be avoided.

Jesus' acceptance of her had to have been a surprise, especially when he told her he even knew the details of her sin, what she had done and was still doing (John 4: 17-18).

As far as Jesus was concerned, her sin was not a barrier. This was where Jesus redeemed her. Even though her sin mattered to God, it no longer was a barrier. He had forgiven her. That gave her the power to confront her sin and repent.

In her new relationship with God, we also see the restored relationship with her community. She could not wait to tell everyone what had happened to her (v. 39). Her redemption from sin became her testimony and she willingly became a Missionary of God’s Word.

But some missionaries are not so dramatic. When we look at the story of Ruth, we learn about a Moabite woman whose love for her mother-in-law, Naomi, is so great that after Ruth’s husband dies, she tells Naomi:

“Where you go, I will go” (Ruth 1:16)

Despite all hardships, Ruth followed Naomi. She must have been deeply touched by Naomi to give up everything, family, friends, gods . . . to follow her. She went to a strange county, where she knew only Naomi, had no man to take care of her, and she did everything she could to help Naomi.

There must have been something special in this woman of God, this missionary of His Word, that touched Ruth so strongly that she told her, “Your God will be my God.”

In the life she led, Naomi had become a Missionary of God’s Word. She had a personal relationship with Him. He tried her, but she hung onto Him. And through her life, she touched Ruth who became the great grandmother of King David of whose family Jesus Christ was born.

Whose lives are we touching as we proclaim, teach and live by God’s Word. Are we using our gifts, praying for the sick and unsaved or do we stumble, causing others to go astray.

Just As the butterfly flirts from one flower to another, touching each one, we as Christians should go from person to person, touching their lives through the love of God.

We are taught to seek righteousness, be merciful and forgiving, to walk an extra mile, to secretly give to the needy, and to lay up our treasures in heaven. In short, we are taught that our hearts must always be serving God by loving him and loving our neighbors. There is no schedule or checklist to follow. We don't get extra credit for outward displays of righteousness.

In Matthew 28:19-20 the Lord said "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you, for lo, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

God entrusted us with a mission to go out into the world and spread the word of His promise of salvation, of His sacrifice on the cross and the miracle of His resurrection. But the world can be next door, door the street, in our church congregation or even in our own family.

In the course of performing this mission, we must always remember whose we are and who we represent. We are children of God, Missionaries of His Word.

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Brendalyn Crudup Martin is an Ordained Deacon in the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church (CME) and the Associate Assistant to the Rev. Felix M. Jones, Pastor of Phillips Memorial CME Church in Phoenix, AZ. She is a wife, mother and grandmother and a published writer of poetry, devotionals and personal experience articles.