“I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy, For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now; Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:” Philippians 1:3–6 Adoniram Judson was one of the pioneers of American foreign missions. His task became harder even before it began because his Bible study while he was sailing to the mission field convinced him that obedience to the Bible requires believer’s baptism. When he arrived in Calcutta, he was baptized by a member of William Carey’s missionary team and became a Baptist—cutting off all his financial support. He endured great hardship, sickness, disease and imprisonment. His beloved wife and two of their first three children died on the field. There were few converts at first. After a dozen years of labor, only eighteen believers had been baptized. Yet despite all that he endured, Judson remained steadfast in the work. Early in his ministry he set a goal of translating the Bible into the Burmese language, and he hoped for one hundred converts. Not only did Judson translate the Bible (a translation still widely used today), but he compiled a Burmese-English dictionary that remained in use for decades. When Judson died, instead of one hundred converts, there were one hundred churches with thousands of converts. Of his years of toil and suffering, he wrote, “If I had not felt certain that every trial was ordered by infinite love and mercy, I could not have survived my accumulated sufferings.” Serving God does not guarantee that things will always go right. But His faithful presence and blessing offer hope even in the most difficult circumstances. The inward work of the Holy Spirit offers us joy regardless of what is going on around us. And that joy sustains us when the days are dark and encourages us to remain faithful to the end. Today’s Renewal Principle: Despite the hardships we may endure, serving God faithfully always results in joy.
Posted on: Tue, 02 Sep 2014 14:27:30 +0000
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