God’s complete joy in Himself as a Trinity led Him to want to double that joy by extending it beyond Himself to the human beings He created. Likewise, we will want to double our joy by seeing how adequate God is to meet our need-love as we use our resources to perform the greatest service to others-helping them to experience the joy in believing in God’s wonderful promises, guaranteed by the finished work of Christ.
The Unity of the Bible, Zondervan Publishing House, 1992. Get this book!
For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.
Missions is the automatic outflow and overflow of love for Christ. We delight to enlarge our joy in him be extending it to others. As Lottie Moon said, “Surely there can be no greater joy than that of saving souls.”
