Daily Encounter: A Week-day Devotional by a staff of ACTS International.

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

"And then he [Jesus] told them, 'Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone, everywhere.'"¹

It's hard to even begin to imagine what the nine coal-miners felt in Quecreek, Pennsylvania, back in 2002 when they were trapped 244 feet below the surface in the 50-degree cold while struggling for survival in a pocket of air in the flooded coal-mine. Thinking they were doomed, several wrote farewell notes to their loved ones. Miner Blaine Mayhugh, 31, asked his boss for a pen when the water in the shaft kept rising. "I want to write my wife and kids to tell them I love them," he said. Then, fearing their death, the miners tied themselves together so all of their bodies would be found if they drowned. It must have been a terrifying experience.

What a relief it was when we learned of their amazing rescue and thanked God for the team who worked feverishly day and night for three days to save the trapped miners—and marveled how they not only found exactly where the men were trapped, but also how they were able to rescue all nine miners.

The New York Times (July 29, 2002) described how a wave of exultation swept out from the floodlit rescue scene as the first words resounded up from below with the news that all the missing miners had survived their ordeal. People were weeping and cheering at village roadsides and television sets at the news that the disastrous flood deep underground had left no fatalities among the harried night crew that disappeared on Wednesday deep in the Quecreek mine.

If only the church as a whole and today's Western Christians had the same commitment to rescue those who are bound for a lost eternity in darkness without God and without hope.

Here in ACTS International, while we are just a tiny organization, we are among those who are doing everything in their power to reach the lost for Christ. Never before has the church had the technology that makes it possible to reach so many--by so few--for so little comparative cost.

But like so many others who are doing this work all we lack is the support. God has given his church the life-saving message, the methods to communicate it to untold thousands of people worldwide, but we just don't have the sufficient means. 

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, please move among the hearts of Your people to join with and support the rescue teams who are on the front line of action seeking to win the lost to Jesus. Help me to realize the full impact of the unthinkable doom of those who are lost in darkness who, without Your gift of salvation, are doomed for eternal damnation and will be lost forever without hope. And grant with Your help that I will do my part in obeying Your commission to help take the gospel to everyone, everywhere. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus's name, amen."

P.S. To see how you can help ACTS share the gospel see http://www.actscom.com

1. Mark 16:15 (NLT).

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