Blessing Missionaries

JUSTIN TAYLOR|4:19 PM CT

15 Ways to Bless Your Missionaries This Christmas without Paying Postage

Here are 15 post-office-free ideas to get you started, most of which you could do right now from your desk, written by an anonymous 30-year-old missionary:

1. Pray specific Scripture for them and their ministry, and then email it to them.
2. Call or email their parents—Christmas might be just as lonely for the ones at home as the ones away.
3. Purchase credits on Skype so they can stay in touch with family and friends.
4. Donate frequent flier miles to them.
5. Ask them if you can host an evening of prayer of them and the local people who work with them.
6. Purchase an iTunes gift card for them. You can send these through email or if you buy a physical card simply email them the code on the back.
7. Commit to pray for them on a specific day of the week for a year.
8. Write a song or poem or story for them. Email them the text and a recording of you reading or singing it.
9. Get friends and family together to create a holiday video greeting for them on YouTube or Vimeo. Include lots of people you know they miss. (If people are working in sensitive locations you may want to make this a “private video.”)
10. Make a year-end gift through their missions board or agency.
11. Paypal—the fastest and easiest way to send money.
12. Call their local florist (not everyone is in the jungle these days) and have flowers delivered, or their local Pizza Hut and have pizza delivered—with corn and shrimp as toppings!
13. Send them a gift card for a Bible Study platform like OliveTree or Logos.
14. Donate to a charity that means a lot to them.
15. Make a monthly commitment to support them financially.

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“I will shake all nations, and the Desire of all nations shall come" Haggai 2:7

Written by  - Dr. Ray Pritchard, president of Keep Believing Ministries 

“I will shake all nations, and the Desire of all nations shall come" (Haggai 2:7).

This fascinating verse apparently has a double meaning. It applies first to the rebuilding of the temple by Zerubbabel. In that sense God promises that the wealth of the nations will flow into the temple in Jerusalem. The rest of the verse promises that God will fill the rebuilt temple with his glory. 

Christians have traditionally seen in this verse a foreshadowing of the coming of Christ because Jesus in John 2:20-21 referred to his body as “this temple,” meaning that in his life, death and resurrection, he would fulfill what the temple pictured through its design, its priesthood, its furniture, and its sacrifices. Jesus is the ultimate “Desire of All Nations” and the radiance of God’s glory. What the temple pictured, Christ fulfilled.

But that’s not all. 

When the writer of Hebrews contemplated the coming end of the age, he quoted Haggai 2:6 and applied it to the coming of Christ:

At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain (Hebrews 12:26-27).

That’s what God is doing in our day. He’s shaking the nations–literally!–so that the world will be ready for the coming of Christ. As Christ’s first advent happened “when the time had fully come” (Galatians 4:4), even so his return to the earth will occur when God has prepared everything just as he promised. 

Jesus is the only one who can fulfill the deepest desires of the human heart. As Pascal said, there is a God-shaped vacuum inside every person. If we do not fill the vacuum with God, we are bound to fill it with the the spiritual junk food of this world, but in that case we will never be satisfied. 

The people of the world desire Christ even though they do not know it for he alone can meet their deepest needs. One of the verses of Charles Wesley’s Hark! the Herald Angels Sing contains a verse that mentions this name of Christ (and several others as well). Though rarely sung, it contains deep biblical truth:

Come, desire of nations, come,
Fix in us thy humble home;
Rise, the woman’s conquering seed,
Bruise in us the serpent’s head. 

Adam’s likeness now efface,
Stamp thy image in its place.
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in thy love.

The nations will never live in peace until they know Jesus. Can we be at peace while they live without him?

Lord Jesus, while we wait for your return, help us to make you known in every nation. Amen.

You can reach the author at ray@keepbelieving.com. Click here to sign up for the free weekly email sermon.