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One Radical Woman

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lottie moonAs we come into this Holiday Season, and I mean the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it is the time of the year that some of the churches in the denomination  I go to take up the Lottie Moon offering for missionaries around the world. In the past month or so I have been studying women and their roles in Christianity and I have also been reading a book by David Platt called Radical.  It is so incredible how God pulls things all together for us sometimes. The book Radical in the last chapter puts a one year challenge out there for Christians to do if they are so inclined after reading the book. Here they are 1.) Pray for the entire world. 2.) Read through the entire Word. 3.) Sacrifice my money for a specific purpose. 4.) Spend time in another context. 5.) Commit my life to multiplying community. In 1873 Lottie found her calling and headed out for China to be a missionary. Lottie was a missionary, a leader, a teacher and an evangelist. Lottie went to China a single woman, which was not so common at this time. Lottie not only affected countless number of lives in China she changed things in America in how money was raised for missions in the field to help them with funds from here to tell others about Jesus. I would have to say through learning about Lottie she did live “Radically”. I believe she did all 5 of the things David Platt challenged us all to do. I believe Lottie was praying everyday, while she might not have been praying for the entire world. Lottie could have been praying for all the people in China who lives she was touching and the people she had yet to encounter and how she could share Christ with them. Lottie might have been praying for the people back “home” in the United States for them to continue to help with missions. She could have been praying for more of them to answer a calling on their lives and go to where God was leading them to share Christ with others. Maybe she was also praying over the other missionaries she knew in other parts of the world who she knew were serving. I do not know exactly what Lottie was praying but I do believe she was praying each day. Number two of the challenge I would think she would be in Gods word each day, as well as teaching others what God’s word said. I would bet she had a lot of scripture memorized as well. To share Christ as she was the Bible must have been a huge part of her day-to-day life. Next is to sacrifice money for a specific purpose… I do not think Lottie had a lot of money as she worked in China, however she left her “comfortable” life here in the United States to share Christ with others. I have read many counts of her even giving people her food because they needed it worse than she did during a famine in China. With her letters home she would tell other women how she was living and what she was doing. The women here in America felt so moved for Lottie and the people she was serving they hand wrote letters to other women to collect funds for missions. In the first year they raised enough money to send three more missionaries into the field. Lottie was not only giving unselfishly she was inspiring others to do the same. To this day offerings are taken up in Lottie’s name and millions of dollars have been raised to help missionaries in numerous mission fields.  Number 4 spend time in another context well that one is obvious since she left America and went to China. However in China she not only stayed at the “missionary camp” she went inland and evangelized in more remote and more dangerous parts of China. Lottie got out of her comfort zone to make an impact not only in China but in the hearts and minds of people back here in America also. Committed her life to multiplying community, to share Christ with others and show them how to become a member of the Body of Christ, I believe Lottie did this even when it was not easy. To become a missionary at the time she did was not easy,  as I said single women where not to go to the mission field, yet Lottie persisted and went. While she was in China the “leaders” back in America wrote to Lottie and told her she had to stop preaching, that it was not to be done, that women could not teach or preach to men. Lottie replied telling the leaders ok send some men to do it and I will stop. Lottie spent 40 years in China and I could not find an account where she stopped evangelizing or teaching others about Christ. I believe Lottie truly felt she had a calling from God to tell others about Christ and that is exactly what she did. As I read Radical and researched Lottie, and many other women of faith, I started thinking well maybe living “radically” would not be as hard as I thought it might be. I though how different our homes, our towns, our cities, country and other countries could be if more of us in the Body of Christ took up the challenge and even if just for one year decided to live Radically for Christ. The thought of that is pretty amazing. Lottie took her last breath on a boat in Japan as she was on her way back to America, she “dropped a small stone into a huge ocean” when she was doing her missionary work. A stone that created a ripple that over a hundred years later we are still seeing. It is amazing to think how many thousands…. or maybe millions of people lives this one woman has touched. I believe as Lottie took that last breath, and went to be in Glory with Christ, when Christ saw her maybe just maybe he embraced her and said, “Well done my good and faithful servant”. What do you think? Time to get Radical? jesus embrace


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