Lottie Moon. I want to be like her, but I didn\u2019t realize how much until I dove into her life story.<\/p>\n
You could draw a line in the sand, mention the name Lottie Moon, and people who revere her will move to one side of the line while people whispering, \u201cWho\u2019s that?\u201d will migrate to the other. I had one foot in each camp.<\/p>\n
My current church is in the \u201cwho\u2019s that?\u201d category. Most people at my church, planted 15 years ago, did not grow up thoroughbred Southern Baptists. While they participate in and give to global missions, they\u2019re not familiar with Lottie. But I grew up in a church that revered her, and I raised money for missions in my rice-bowl-shaped piggy bank to give to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.<\/p>\n
Her photos in a Victorian-laced collar might give the impression she was a stuffy school marm who adhered to strict rules. Yet, she was playfully defiant, poking fun at the church until she chose to follow Christ at age 18. And she was ambitiously smart and became one of the first women in the South to earn a master\u2019s degree.<\/p>\n
Whether you\u2019re already familiar with her story or this is your first introduction, you\u2019ll find that her somewhat terse language flows from a contagious, tenacious heart for God\u2019s mission.<\/p>\n
Why I want to be like Lottie<\/p>\n
1. She confidently believed that salvation was personal and so was the Great Commission .
\n The Gospel came through Christ to us to save us, but not to stop with us. We are saved for God\u2019s glory and then appointed to declare His glory.<\/p>\n
\u201cShould we not press it home upon our consciences that the sole object of our conversion was not the salvation of our own souls, but that we might become coworkers with our Lord and Master in the conversion of the world?\u201d Lottie asked.
\n2. She daringly called for an insurrection in status quo mission thinking .
\n If the Great Commission is for all believers, then we must personally answer the question, \u201cAm I going or sending?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 She challenged young men: \u201cAsk not if it is his duty to go to the heathen, but if he may dare stay at home. The command is so plain: \u2018Go.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 She challenged pastors: \u201cKnowing the loud call for laborers in the foreign field, will you settle down with your home pastorates? So many could be found to fill your places … so few volunteer for foreign work.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 She challenged women: \u201cThousands of women will never hear the Gospel until women bear it to them.\u201d
\n3. She unapologetically asked believers to give .
\n Although salvation is free, sending people where the Gospel has not been shared has a cost. Giving to God\u2019s mission is an investment. Lottie\u2019s questions create a jolt meant to stir hearts to an urgent need. \u201cWhy this strange indifferences to missions?\u201d she wrote. \u201cWhy these scant contributions? Why does money fail to be forthcoming when approved men and women are asking to be sent to proclaim the \u2018unsearchable riches of Christ\u2019 to the heathen?\u201d
\n4. She unwaveringly obeyed God and abandoned comfort to live in a hard place .
\n The eternal reality that people were dying without hearing of Jesus trumped the reality of living in a place devoid of convenience and comfort. Living in China during political upheaval and among people who \u201chad an aversion to foreigners\u201d were mere splinters of the difficulties she faced. Yet she wrote from a village, \u201cThe circumstance would suggest an utter absence of comfort, yet we find ourselves more than contented.\u201d
\n5. She didn\u2019t shy away from pleading for a legion of workers to be sent .
\n Lottie didn\u2019t merely play at missions but confidently persuaded others to consider the reality of people going to an eternal hell. \u201cWe implore you to send us help. Let not these heathen sink down into eternal death without one opportunity to hear that blessed Gospel, which is to you the source of all joy and comfort,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n
Lottie defied the limits of generational, cultural, and missional norms for the sake of the Gospel. I want to be so bold. With nearly three billion people who have never heard of Jesus, we should dare be the same kind of rebel, disrupting casual mission thinking and ambitiously resolved to get the Gospel to all nations at all costs.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll unapologetically ask the same words as Lottie: \u201cIs not the festive season when families and friends exchange gifts in memory of the Gift laid on the altar of the world for the redemption of the human race, the most appropriate time to consecrate a portion from abounding riches and scant poverty to send forth the good tidings of great joy into all the earth?\u201d<\/p>\n
Let us go. But if we stay, let us give, so that others may be sent.
\n________<\/p>\n
All quotes are from Lottie\u2019s letters written while she lived in China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lottie Moon. I want to be like her, but I didn\u2019t realize how much until I dove into her life story. You could draw a line in the sand, mention the name Lottie Moon, and people who revere her will move to one side of the line while people whispering, \u201cWho\u2019s that?\u201d will migrate to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1734,1092,2807,367,305,2808,2366],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6983"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6983\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}