There is a real devil. It may be summertime, and everyone may be excited about sunny days, vacations, school being out, barbequing, camps for kids, finishing remodeling projects, and road trips, but the devil does not take a vacation.
If you were expecting a placid, watered-down, and somewhat Christian sort of letter, you may have to stop reading. Right now, Global Infusion has eight teams in eight nations battling it out on the front line of Christianity. If you don’t believe there is a real devil, or he doesn’t really affect our world, then let me remind us all of what the Bible says about our adversary. While God has a wonderful plan for our lives (Jer. 29:11), and His thoughts and ways are higher than ours (Is. 55:8-9), there is someone else who has a plan for our lives: “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.” (John 10:10a).
Just ask one of our team members working in Thailand, ministering to young girls who have been kidnapped out of their village in the night, and are now working the streets if there is a devil. Visit our team in India, or the Philippines, where they are physically carrying disabled children who have been abandoned. Maybe spend some time with our team in China who are teaching English, but spending every other waking minute with the atheist and agnostic students who have grown up under communism. If you have time, venture out with our teams in Guatemala and Nicaragua to some of the poorest villages on the planet; there, you’ll be able to hand out food to people who are starving.
If you are under the assumption that there either is no devil, or that his work does not affect our world, then I pray that God opens your spiritual and physical eyes. Keep in mind that all of our teams are largely interacting with unsaved people, most of whom are unreached.
There is a second part to John 10:10, however, and this is why we go to foreign countries, raise money, use vacation time, subject ourselves to less-than-favorable conditions, leave our families, and endure days upon days of rugged travel: Jesus says, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”
He came and brought life. Our world is broken, very broken. Injustice seems to reign everywhere you go. Poverty and sickness is rampant. The final truth, however, is that Jesus has already come, He has already paid the ultimate price.
We as Christians are responsible for reaching our generation for Christ (Acts 16:36). The love of Christ compels us (2 Cor. 5:14). That is why we go.
