Are Your Feet Beautiful?

"How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news?" (Ro. 10:15)

Last night we were walking across the parking lot at Target and my 13 year old daughter looked down at my feet in flip flops and boldly declared, "Dad, you sure have ugly feet." So I asked her,
"How can you say that?" She said, "They are scarred and hairy, and just old." We both laughed.

I am reading a book on missions for a class I am taking this summer and this morning I read a debate about whether someone who has never heard the gospel can be saved. The old hypothetical, what about a lost heathen on a remote island who never hears and never has an opportunity to hear. Can they be saved? I certainly trust a loving God with the decisions that He makes about that. But let me ask a more important question of those of us who are followers of Jesus. If we never make an effort to tell them the Good News, can we really be saved?

On a trip into our village in West Africa last year one of the leaders in the church there complained of his feet hurting. As we looked at them we saw large sores on the bottom that looked to be indicative of parasites. But as I saw the calloused and pocketed with sores feet, I was reminded of this verse in Romans. "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the Gospel."

This African believer had been walking a couple of times every week to villages as far as15 to 20 miles away to share the Good News. With tears in my eyes I prayed for this man's feet that he might be able to continue to share with those who have not yet heard. What will you do today to tell others about the Good News of Jesus Christ? Are your feet beautiful in God's eyes?

All the Peoples

"And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing." (Gen. 12:2)

When God called Abraham to follow him, He told Him that He would bless him in order for him to in turn be a blessing to all the peoples of the world. Throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament God's heart is for every people group of the world to hear the Good News of Redemption. God always blesses us in order that we be a blessing to others.

In Acts 16, God turned Paul on his second missionary journey toward Europe and the Gospel went west. What if He had sent Paul toward the east and Asia or China had received the Gospel first? Would they have shared with western nations? Would we have prospered so much without the Gospel in our civilization?

I believe hat God blessed Europe for years and blessed the United States for years so that we would in turn be a blessing to the rest of the world. The greatest of the blessings that He gives is the message of Good News to redeem us from our sins. We have a tremendous responsibility to make sure that every people group hears the Gospel message in their heart language. That is not the responsibility of a few carreer missionaries, but the responsibility of every person who knows the Lord Jesus as Savior.