excuse #5

another excuse people give why they don't go to the mission field (from keith green's article "why you should go to the mission field.") check it out and think about it a while:

"But I need to stay here and lead my relatives to the Lord first. If I go somewhere else, how can they get saved?"

check keith's response out:

There was once a man who wanted to follow and obey Jesus, but he said to Him, "Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father." Jesus' answer to him was, "Follow me; and allow the dead to bury their own dead." (Matt. 8:21-22)

This may sound cruel of Jesus not to allow the man to have a funeral for his dead father - but most likely, the man's father had not died yet. The phrase "wait until I bury my father" was sometimes used to say "wait until my father has died." What he was really saying was, "I'd like to follow You now, but You see, my parents wouldn't understand. Please wait until after they've died, and then I'll be more than glad to follow You!"

Jesus' answer was appropriate... "allow the dead to bury their own dead." In other words, "allow the unbelievers to take care of themselves, and follow Me!" Jesus doesn't want us to throw our usefulness away because our relatives are not yet saved. The greatest witness they can see is you fully obeying the call of God on your life. Jesus didn't want this man's father to be buried - He wanted the young man to follow Him, and then maybe even the man's father would come to know Him too. Obedience is truly greater than sacrifice (I Samuel 15:22) - when we obey God, He takes care of all our other obligations. (Matt. 6:33)

who ever said serving in ministry was gonna be painless?