Genuine healing is not in hollow laughter, in fleeting medication or temporal diversions. It comes with the Lord Jesus Christ in your heart. In a sick world where humanity is at its deathbed, can God still touch our hearts and our lives? Or have we given up about being healed?
In its 10th World Missions Conference, the Bible Baptist Church Katipunan called for unity and action in healing the world with missions. Some 2,000 delegates from different parts of the world and the country converged at Katipunan stirred up to launch missions work more aggressively and globally. Though conference theme was “Let me see this world, dear Lord,” speakers moved missionaries, pastors, preachers, ministry workers and laymen to do more – be part of healing the world.
Highlight of the four-day event was the launching of a program called, “Workers Trained to Evangelize.” The first-ever to be done in the country, the program is especially designed to reach out overseas Filipino workers from their local churches.
Weighed in the Balance.
Our world has been weighed in the balance – our world is horribly sick and dying. No matter how much sensory bombardment is done to cushion, hide and obliterate even temporarily the ills of the world, it cannot be hidden or concealed. There are inane noontime shows on television, demeaning entertainment, wretched movies – everything seems to be done to poison the mind if only to hide the realities of death. Like anti-depressant drugs, people want to believe and are made to believe everything will be alright and will snap out. But then drugs or men are not in control. God is in control.
There is no ominous or doomsday prediction here. One need not read the newspaper or see a physician to know that civilizations right now are stalked with the death of humanity. Each second there is an earthquake, mudslide, landslide, wildfire, nuclear missile launches, hunger, unexplainable diseases and nations literally and virtually rising against nations. Civilizations right now are stalked with the death of humanity. “People are perishing without cause,” said Pastor Gerry Nable of Bethany Baptist Church. “We see a lost world. But we must go beyond our homes, our communities or countries, we must cross the streets and cross the seas in a worldwide mission to save the lost.”
Physicians don’t hide diagnosis from patients who have cancer. They reveal the ailment to patients upfront, albeit gently, to make them go through treatment protocol or healing protocol. And yes patients and relatives of patients claw their way to look for resources just to make a patient stay alive or recover from the disease. A missionary is like a physician but is more than a physician. A missionary is a visionary because he brings a civilization out of a lost and sick world to a world with Christ in their lives. There is no religious conversion to this.
Missions is about touching people and places for God and making God touch people and places through the Gospel. It is about realigning a people to God’s presence if only to redeem civilization and humanity from death. It is about teaching and preaching the gospel to make all nations “my disciples.” The whole point about making God touch people and people touch God is to “heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead and cast out devils.”
To put an analogy, in most cases when a patient has cancer he is administered medication including chemotherapy so that cancer cells are “cast out.” Many patients say that chemotherapy is painful and expensive. But no matter what it costs and entails, cancer patients go through treatment in a will to live.
How many of us go at length no matter what it costs and entails to live for Christ? How many of us have the will to realign ourselves to God’s Will? Until a man is diagnosed with cancer or engulfed in disaster or tragedy, he often turns to the fleeting sensory bombardment of the world and not to God.
No missionary excursion.
Healing the world with missions is like cancer treatment protocol but is more than that. Because while chemotherapy can sometimes fail and make cancer cells recur, the healing power of missions work saves a person from death and rescues him from the ills of the world.
To preach the Gospel is no missionary excursion. It is said that missions is not an occasional activity for those so called but is part of the very being of people of God. It is about reconciliation, healing, renewing and reviving in God’s presence. Said Pastor Renato Rebaton, “Our mission is a ministry of reconciliation. We ought not to faint. We ought to have compassion for people.”
Here Am I, Send Me.
Indeed becoming a missionary is no gut or capricious pursuit. To become missionary is of the highest calling because while many pursue a career for financial security and fame, a missionary gives his life for God. More than a physician, a missionary does not just give spiritual healing, he saves a person from spiritual death. When a missionary plunges into missions work, he knows fully well the odds against him and his family including no food, no water, no security. While most missionaries are given financial support from local churches, it is the psychological and emotional trials that get them on their knees.
Said Pastor Demver Andales on the calling to become a missionary, “Before you see the world, see yourself. Before you see yourself, seek God, before you seek God get on your knees. That way you can see the world in God’s eyes. You will never see the world unless you see it in God’s eyes.”
For over 50 years the Bible Baptist Church in Katipunan has been launching soul winning as its flagship mission and ministry. It has organized more than 300 churches and missionary work in Cebu, other parts of the country and the world extending to countries like Australia, Bangladesh, Congo, East Timor, Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kashmir, Palau and Mexico, among others.
But God’s work is not yet done nor should healing the world in missions be for Bible Baptist Church Katipunan only. It is for all Christians, all men and all civilizations in this will to survive a dying world. This will could be the last.