Our mandate remains the same . . . The Great Commission has not expired!

Every export is someone else’s import. Think of it. Whatever we send abroad stays abroad. Shoddy exports make shoddy imports. That’s not a hard concept to grasp is it? Certainly not.

The same principle applies to missions. Export trash or heresy and for sure someone is going to fall for it. Why is that? Well, primarily because people are hungry for truth. And, hungry people will generally consume almost anything that promises sustenance.

Somalia is a case in point.

Mothers are forced to abandon children along the long bleak route from their homeland to the foreign refugee camps set up in Kenya simple to assure themselves that at least part of the family will survive. It’s a tough choice.

Some are reported to have boiled tree bark and sipped on the juice for what little nutrition there is in that. Others have eaten dung. My what a terrible choice to have to make. But hungry people will do some pretty awful things just to survive.

We need to pray for these poor people and give as much as we are able to give.

Now, I know that it is hard for the average nominal Christian to wrap their mind around the concept that there is a fate much more worse than these refugees are facing that countless others are facing on a daily basis, spiritually.

Speaking of Jesus, the unequivocal statement of Scripture is simply this:

Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)

Therefore, our mandate remains the same. We must take those without the truth the message of love and peace through Christ Jesus. Because we are convinced—

That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" (Rom. 10: 9-15)