“Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house.” (Luke 10:7)
Hidden in the story of Jesus sending out the 72 disciples is the story of God’s provision. Jesus told them to take nothing on this short journey, noting that they would find a place to stay and that food and shelter would be provided for them.
When talking about God’s provision we share with joy about when and how God provides for our needs. In different conversations we happily talk about the work of missions and what God is doing in the world. It seems that often we are careful to separate these two conversations, which makes sense in some ways; eternal salvation and daily provision are topics from two different realms, it hardly seems appropriate to relate one to the other. But in this story they are intertwined. Jesus sends the disciples out to do his work while at the same time instructing them to take no provisions on the journey, they would be cared for along the way.
I think there is a danger in separating God’s provision from our Kingdom work. If God’s provision is separate and distinct from our duty as his followers, we may have a tendency to forget how urgent and large the task at hand is. Jesus told the disciples that the harvest was plentiful but the workers were few; there was and still remains a lot of work to be done. If we become satisfied knowing that God will provide for us, we might naturally lose sight of the urgency of the task that he has given us. Our Kingdom work is dangerous, and in fact impossible for us to do alone. Demons submitted to the disciples in the name of Jesus as they healed the sick. These are things that we cannot do on our own.
The great irony here is that the disciples were capable of providing for themselves. They all had shelter and food to eat before Jesus came along. When Jesus took them in and sent them out, he asked them to do things that they could not do and told them that the provisions of life would be met for them along the way. We also must make every effort to do the impossible tasks of the Kingdom through the power of Jesus; this is our first task and responsibility. God’s provision is not a separate topic but a natural result of our service. God will supply all of our needs as we first seek to accomplish the work of his Kingdom.
In March we were able to pay all of our missionaries 100 percent of their target allowance. We used $39,787 from the General Fund to meet these needs, leaving a balance of $153,729 at the end of February. Our Benefits Fund carried a balance of $76,649. Thank you for your ongoing support!