Month of Missions Devotional- Day Two, Friday, February 2

Topic: Faithfully Seeking the Lost

Text: For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10).

Jesus Christ came with the purpose of seeking those who are lost. Christ taught the importance of seeking after the one who is lost. We will have to seek out the lost intentionally because they’re not likely to come to us so we must go to them. Since the fall of Adam, all mankind is in a lost and fallen state. In that regard, Jesus told His disciples to go into all the world and to make disciples of all nations but also to teach them to observe what He taught them (Mathew 28:19-20). This is part of the seeking and saving of the lost. The passion of Jesus Christ for the lost was what He wanted to teach His followers and His disciples, and it’s what they wanted to teach us. That we must remain faithful to the end in our passion for the lost.

God, in his infinite mercies, has other amazing ways of witnessing to the lost. Darlene Sala in her Series: “Encouraging Words; Seeking the Lost”, told the story of a professional diver, who while diving one day on the bottom of the ocean, noticed an oyster with a piece of paper in its mouth. He detached the oyster and held the piece of paper close to the goggles of his headgear. He found that it was a Gospel tract telling how to become a Christian, and calling on whoever reads it to repent of his sins.

The diver was amazed and said, “I cannot hold out against God any longer, since He has gone to so much trouble to track me down.” He repented of his sins at the bottom of the ocean and placed His faith in Jesus Christ. God used an oyster to change the diver’s life. God is glorified when a lost person is found and saved from eternal condemnation.

Quite often, people cannot reach out to God by their own efforts. God often reaches out to us. The story of Zacchaeus in the gospel of Luke 19 is a good example of this. Zacchaeus was determined to see Jesus, and would let nothing stop him. But he was so short that he could not get to see Jesus among the crowd, so he ran ahead and climbed the sycamore tree beside the road, to be able to watch Jesus from there (Luke 19:3-4). For Zacchaeus to mix with the crowd at all was a courageous act; for many people would have taken an opportunity to kick, or push the little tax-collector who had for long rip them off.

The action of Zacchaeus is a picture of human effort to reach God. The sycamore tree typifies the human way to reach out to God. But being short and inadequate, human effort cannot reach God’s standard to find & reach him. Only the tree of Jesus, which is the cross, can bridge the gap between God and man. The connection that has been lost due to sin has been reconnected through Jesus Christ, the mediator between God and man.

When Jesus was passing by the tree, he looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name. “Zacchaeus!” he said. “Quick, come down! For I must be a guest in your home today” (Luke 19:5). Jesus looked out for Zacchaeus more than Zacchaeus was looking out for Jesus! Jesus is always looking for lost sinners more than lost sinners look for Jesus. That is His passion. He wants to enter into every person’s heart and life. All believers of Christ should have this kind of compassion for the lost. Unfortunately, very few believers are actively sharing their faith. We must get back to the heart of Christ’s mission and passion so that the Church can be the voice of truth to those who are lost. God makes it clear through His word that He wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1Timothy 2:4).

Prayer:

  • There is nobody who is out of salvation’s reach. Pray for the lost in faith and hope (1 Thessalonians 5:17).
  • Ask the Lord to remove every veil covering the eyes of the lost.
  • Ask the Lord to place more believers on the path of the unreached who will boldly proclaim the truth and faithfully walk in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.

Andrew Gwaivangmin

Executive Secretary, NEMA

Month of Missions Devotional – Day One, Thursday, February 1

Topic: Heart for the Harvest

Text: John 4:34

We all need a heart for the harvest like our Lord and Master. His goal was to finish the harvest. The harvest became His meat (food, strength and nourishment). For us to have and maintain a heart for the harvest like our Lord and master we must:

  1. Own the harvest: Owners take serious responsibility. Owners would do anything, pay any price, go to any length to get the harvest home. I know it because I practice farming. Harvest time is a crucial time for the farmer. You can’t ignore the harvest. You can’t suspend the harvest. It is a top priority. Food and pleasure may wait but not the harvest. Our hearts cannot be on the harvest unless we see the harvest as our own.
  2. We need to remind ourselves the extent of the harvest. It doesn’t matter how much and far we have reached, the question is what is left undone.
  3. We need to know the enemies of the harvest: In the harvest of crops and grains, we have the wind, fire, late rains and thieves as enemies. Other faiths and occult groups are competing for the same harvest fields we are sent to. On the other hand, wars, terrorism and crises are killing and destroying lives and properties in the fields Christ has commanded us to go to.
  4. Reward is coming: The Master says in Rev. 22:12 “Behold I come quickly; and my reward is with me to give every man according as his work shall be.” Our labour shall be rewarded by the master Himself. We live to work and we must work now while the sun shines.

Prayer:

  • Ask the Lord to make you own the harvest.

Rev David Kanda

National Chairman, NEMA & General Overseer, Harvesters for Christ Ministries, Kaduna

Translation of Discipleship Essential Manual into Hausa

As part of our commitment to make discipleship resources available in Northern Nigeria, we are translating the Discipleship Essential Manual into Hausa. This initiative is done in collaboration with TWR Canada and indigenous Hausas from Kano as translators. We translated 7 modules; Recorded 31 Radio Programs; 415 Pages of DE Lesson Essentials, Leader’s Guide and Study Guide.

A mission leader has made commitment to air the TWR Hausa version audio on a renowned radio station in Northern Nigeria.

NEMA Month of Missions 2023

NEMA exists primarily to serve mission organisations in Nigeria. In 2023, we touched based with all registered member agencies. Many of them were supported and encouraged in their various activities of reaching the unreached. Some other services rendered to NEMA member agencies include:

Connecting member agencies to target people groups and communities. Mobilising missionaries for some member agencies. Connecting member agencies to churches and other ministries for partnership purposes. Organisational development consultancy was carried out for eight member agencies. This is towards helping member agencies address their structural and governance issues which are vital to their operations.

NEMAs’ 28days Prayer Bulletin for the UPGs in Nigeria

Through the generous donations of friends, partners and member agencies, we were able to support at least one hundred and fifty missionaries in 2023. About fifty missionaries were also connected to some sort of regular support. We also intervened as the Lord provides for missionaries having health challenges, those needing accommodation, missionary children education support etc.

We supported special mission outreaches with fund, resources such as Bibles, Audio Bibles, Audio-visuals and print Discipleship materials, clothing, food as well as facilitating the movement of missionaries to outreach locations.

 

The Virtual Missionary

The Gospel has always been the solution to the chaos among men. It is the provision of God to save and redeem men from eternal damnation and restoration of the world. The Gospel is the power of God unto Salvation both to the Jews and the Gentiles! Romans 1: 16.
With about 7.9 billion people on earth and over 2.3 billion of them who have not heard about Jesus, met a believer or understood the Gospel enough to make decision for Jesus, our world. is desperately in need of the Gospel! Unfortunately, most of these people are not only deprived of the Gospel, they are also shielded from accessing the Gospel either by Government restrictions, physical inaccessibility, violence or outright resistance.
However, during Jesus time on earth, he used different means to preach the Gospel. Most of these means were relevant to his audience and easily understood by his listeners. Likewise, during the Apostles time, the Gospel was given to all men and bore much fruits irrespective of location, religion, bias or affiliation. When Jesus was going up to heaven, he commanded his Disciples to make Disciples of all Nations (Matthew 28:19,20) and just after a few decades, the testimony was that the Gospel was bringing forth fruit in all the world! (Colossians 1:5,6). In fact, the people of the world did acknowledge that they were everywhere with the Gospel (Acts 21:27,28).
So how did they do it?
In 1Corinthians 9:18-23 Paul gave an insight. He said he took advantage of every available means to present the Gospel to everyone in every place in the context and form they would understand. To the Jews, he preached the Gospel from the Torah and the Prophets (Acts 13:15- 41), to the Greeks in Athens, he preached to them from their poetic writings and the objects of their worship (Acts 17: 23 -28). Evidently, the early Christians reached their world in spite of the resistance and oppositions because they took advantage of all creative means available!