I’ve only made one so far and we’ll see how I do as the year goes on.

My resolution is to be more compassionate: not only to witness to people about salvation and spiritual growth, but also to work harder at helping those in need, as we are so often commanded to do in Scripture. Both go hand in hand.

Showing compassion can take many forms. It can include helping our neighbor across the street, a person in our church, and being a hand extended toward the needy around the world by supporting one or more compassion ministries.

I’m glad AG World Missions puts an emphasis on compassion. Their four-point missions strategy includes evangelizing, planting indigenous churches and training believers. The last one states: “The showing of compassion for suffering people in a manner representing the love of Jesus Christ.”

Missionaries have discovered that meeting people’s physical needs often opens doors for the preaching of the gospel.

AG World Missions is involved in several compassion ministries, including orphanages, schools, feeding programs, medical and dental ministries, well-digging programs and many more.

Isaiah 58:10 assures us: “If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.

Read the whole chapter to get a better idea of God’s heart toward the needy, how He wants us to respond — and the blessings we will receive when we do.

Click here to read an article we recently posted on this AGWM website that illustrates a need and how people are responding with godly compassion.

One of the promises in the Bible we like to recite and claim for our own is the one found in Philippians 4:19 which reads: “My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”

But did you ever look at the context of that promise?

Begin reading in verse 10 where Paul, the great missionary and church planter, rejoices that the Philippian church has shown concern for his needs.

In verses 15-17 Paul tells them they were the only church that shared with him financially “again and again” during a certain point in his ministry.

In verse 18 he informs the church he received the gifts they recently sent him.

He tells them their gifts “are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God” (verse 18).

Then, he adds this assurance in the next verse to this missions-minded congregation: “My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”

How are we doing in our support of ministers like Paul who are going around the world preaching the gospel and planting churches?

Does our giving stand the test of being a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God?

There are many promises in the Bible Christians can claim. However, I believe Paul intended this promise to be reserved for those who from their heart give in a sacrificial way to missions and ministers and ministries.

Click here to read an article we recently posted on the AG World Missions website about a missions-minded church.

According to the United Nations, 894 million people — more than one in six people worldwide — don’t have access to their daily needs for freshwater.

The report goes on to declare that today, 2.5 billion people, including almost one billion children, live without basic sanitation. Every 20 seconds, a child dies as a result of poor sanitation.

Another report claims that the water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns.

Assemblies of God World Missions is addressing these needs in several different ways. During Thanksgiving weekend I talked with a missionary who is part of a group planning to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania to raise funds for the AG churches in that country to dig more wells.

Africa Oasis Project, Convoy of Hope and other ministries are helping provide freshwater through setting up water filters and digging wells.

What can we do?

First, each time we turn on a water faucet to get a drink of water or take a shower or flush a toilet, let’s be thankful for freshwater, and not take this blessing for granted.

Second, let’s ask God how He wants us to reach out with our compassionate touch to those with spiritual and physical hunger and thirst around the world.

During the service honoring grandparents the speaker, a Baptist pastor, emphasized how grandparents have the awesome responsibility and privilege of passing down their values to their grandchildren, both by what they say and what they do.

I ticked off in my mind the various areas in which I was trying to pass along my values to my grandchildren. Among other topics I thought about missions.

First, do I really share God’s passion for reaching the lost? There are billions in China and India and Latin America and Africa and other lands who still don’t know Jesus loves them. There are people in draught-prone areas starving to death and without water to drink. Millions of Christians daily face persecution. Around the world desperate people are dying, without hope, without Jesus. Today. Tomorrow. Every day. How much do I care?

Second, how much of God’s passion am I really passing on to my children and grandchildren?

Around the dinner table when we are together do I discuss missions or missionaries or the need for taking the gospel around the world? Do I make a point of getting to know the missionaries from my area? Do I make an effort to introduce my grandchildren to these missionaries, or at least take them to missionary meetings where they can listen to their stories and get to know their hearts? Do they know I support missionaries on a regular basis and give to missionaries when they come to my church? Do they hear me pray for our missionaries? Do they hear me honor them as heroes?

The Great Commission of going into all the world to preach the gospel is so important to God that, among other biblical passages, He inserted this command in all four Gospels and the Book of Acts. (See Matthew 28:19, Mark 16:15, Luke 24:48, John 20:21, Acts 1:8.)

Let’s make sure we personally share God’s passion for the lost. Then, let’s pass along that passion to our children, grandchildren, relatives, friends and others within our circle of influence.

Let’s get started today, even before the sun sets.

I couldn’t get in. I was locked out in the cold and rain.

After standing around a few minutes wondering what to do, a coworker approached. With his key fob he opened the door and ushered me into the warmth, security and comfort of the building.

This week, 25 missionary candidates and 17 missionary associates are training for overseas missionary service here at the Assemblies of God national office in Springfield, Missouri.

God has called them to preach the gospel in several different countries around the world. After they get to the mission field they will be opening the Door (KJV) or Gate (NIV), which is what Jesus calls himself, to people so they may enter into the presence of God and be saved and have a full life during their sojourn on earth and for all eternity (See John 10:7-10).

Let’s be in prayer for these new missionaries during their training. As they return to their districts I encourage you to welcome them into your churches. Partner with them as they open the Door or Gate of hope, peace, joy and eternal life to lost people around the world.

Click here to read a story recently posted on the AG World Missions website about a missionary who opened the Door to a little boy in Africa.

But this pastor’s plight is not an isolated incident. According to Christians in Crisis International, 200 million Christians daily face persecution. Every day, on average, more than 300 people are killed for their faith in Jesus Christ.

At the same time, God is growing His church today in miraculous ways around the world.

For example, in the early 20^th century only 50,000 people in Latin America and the Caribbean were born again. Today, more than 100 million people across that region are part of an evangelical fellowship. Among these, nearly 30 million worship in 211,087 Assemblies of God churches and preaching points. There are similar statistics for other parts of the world.

The worldwide church is growing, yet increasingly facing persecution — sometimes in the same places.

As we pray for our missionaries and for growth in our churches around the world, let’s also pray for the millions of Christians today facing persecution.

Steve Jobs died this week at 56. As probably all of you know, he was co-founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Apple Inc. He created the iPad, iPod, iPhone and other electronic devices that most of us carry around with us or have in our homes.

He had known for years he was ill with a disease that would eventually take his life.

In a commencement speech in 2005 he said: “When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: ‘If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.’ It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

Last night in my devotions I read Paul’s reflections in Philippians 3:14-15: “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things.”

Each of us will reach our last day. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not for many years, should the Lord tarry. But we should face each day:   “making the most of ever opportunity, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:16).

God has a task for each of us today. Around the world there are 4.4 billion people who still have not heard an adequate presentation of salvation. Billions more who maybe have heard the gospel need someone to share Christ with them in a personal way. We all have friends, neighbors, relatives who need the Lord. Maybe today someone is carrying a burden that we can lift or someone who needs our helping hands.

We all should press forward toward the heavenly goal, doing whatever we can to draw closer to the Lord in our walk with Him, and doing whatever He wants us to do for His Kingdom today.

Jesus said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).

Each morning as we greet the sunrise let’s ask the Lord what He would have us do today.

I have in front of me a newsletter from a missionary in Africa. A few months ago he was diagnosed with cancer. After lengthy examinations the doctor in the United States told him the cancer was so extensive that even with aggressive treatments and chemotherapy he could not be cured. He had just a few good years left and he would eventually succumb to the disease.

But God’s people prayed, both in Africa and the United States.

A few weeks later, after more tests, the doctor came to the missionary and said a miracle had taken place; he was now cancer free.

We recently posted on the AGWM website an article about a young woman in a hospital in Eurasia. The doctor told her husband she was dying, to go home and collect money for her funeral. The next day when the husband came to pick up the body, his wife was sitting on the edge of the bed, completely well, ready to go home. She said Jesus had come to her bed during the night and healed her. Read her story.

The son of a missionary in Argentina was deathly ill with encephalitis. People prayed. God healed him completely. Read his story.

Assemblies of God theologian Stanley Horton M. Horton wrote: “Prayer recognizes that God is able, that God is in control, that God is faithful. Prayer recognizes that God has done wonders in the past, and He has not changed.”

The writer of Hebrews assures us: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

Missionaries, laypeople, those who live overseas or in the United States, we all have access to Jesus. Whatever our needs are today, let’s realize that Jesus loves us, cares for us and still answers prayer.

Peter reminds us: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24).

In my daily devotions a few days ago I read Philippians chapter 2 where Paul said he was sending Epaphroditus to their church. He asked the congregation to “honor men like him, because he almost died for the work of Christ, risking his life …” (Philippians 2:29-30).

My mother, a retired missionary, recently passed away. As I was going through her journals I was struck by the number of times she mentioned illnesses she and my father struggled with and other perils they faced on the mission field.

Both she and my father got parasites during their first term in Latin America and suffered other physical ailments associated with living overseas. My brothers and I also had our share of battling medical problems on the mission field, fortunately, none of a permanent nature.

My mother wrote in her journals about living through revolutions and other dangers they faced. As a young boy I remember rebels stopping us in our Speed the Light vehicle one night with their guns pointed at us.

My parents, Earl and Ruby Wilkie, and other missionaries sometimes encountered persecution. During their early years on the mission field a missionary friend and several local people from another denomination were martyred in a nearby city during a street meeting.

Every world missionary can tell stories of illness, persecution and life-threatening or other difficult situations they have faced because of their efforts to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ around the world. They can also tell stories of when God stepped in and provided miraculous solutions to bring honor and glory to His name.

The next time missionaries comes to your church, as Paul admonished the Philippian congregation, welcome them in the Lord and honor them (Philippians 2:29). They may or may not have almost died for the work of Christ, but they are certainly living a life of faith and sacrifice and dedication.

Click here to read an article we recently posted on the AGWM website about a life-threatening situation a missionary family went through in Africa.

A few days ago my mother, Ruby Wilkie, went “home,” as she called heaven, just a few weeks after her 90^th birthday.

She and my father, Earl Wilkie, went to the mission field in 1941 and served as AGWM missionaries in Latin America for many years. Here is an article about her early years on the mission field we recently posted on the AGWM website.

After their retirement from missions and my father’s passing, my mother stayed active in the church and community in which she lived.

Among other duties at her church she served as missions secretary. She always remembered the missionaries and their children on their birthdays and anniversaries with cards and letters. When she got a computer her work became easier and faster with email. Her pastor said at her funeral that when missionaries came to his church they would always ask to meet Ruby Wilkie.

For the past 17 years she volunteered two and a half days a week at the local elementary school, helping children with their reading and was especially good at working with the Spanish-speaking children and their families. She was “Nana” to hundreds of children and their parents.

I knew she supported missions including sponsoring a child through Latin America ChildCare, but I had no idea how much. After her passing we discovered that my mother, living on a fixed income of Social Security and a small pension, gave $669.00 a month to missions (not counting her church tithe). She faithfully sent money each month to several missionaries, missions ministries and various other missionary endeavors.

Check out this article about his grandmother from our son, Matt Wilkie, on his website.

She told us ahead of time she had saved up just enough money for her funeral expenses. I got her well-worn Bible, her journals and a few other keepsakes, but the most important inheritance my family and I received was her legacy. Worth more to me than a million dollars in an IRA account, or a mansion in a gated community.

OUR LEGACY?

After attending her funeral and reflecting on her life, I asked myself, and I ask you, what will our legacy be? Are we spending all our money on ourselves, or sending some ahead? (See Matthew 6:19-21). How are we utilizing our time and energy and intellect? For ourselves, or for others and for the kingdom of God?

My mother asked that this Scripture be read at her funeral: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:7-8).

Hopefully the same Scripture will be able to be read about us when we go “home.”