Leverage Your Life for the Nations

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve longed for the frontier. There’s always been this thirst inside of me, this relentless ache to put everything on the line for the discovery of what lies beyond. These stories of old, of daring exploring and pioneering used to keep me awake at night, and they still do. For so long I felt as though I was born at the wrong time. I wish I lived back then, back when the world needed pioneers. But I met a man with holes in his hands and changed all that. As I grew into manhood and tasted true glory, I realized that these yearnings for the frontier were not too strong, but rather too weak. I came to see that my vision was not too high, but rather far too low.

There Are Frontiers Ahead

I now believe that the greatest days of pioneering on the most consequential frontiers are not behind us but ahead. The fire in the eyes of the man from Galilee tell me so. At this tumultuous juncture in history, nearly half of the earth’s population still have never heard the greatest story ever told, the story of our slain and risen savior king. Every day, every hour, every minute, men and women in the world over live and die in the greatest poverty of all, the poverty of the soul, and herein lies is the greatest frontier of all, the great expanse of the unreached and unengaged.

I believe heaven is calling for pioneers, for men and women who will risk it all to go, to go where few or none have gone, to lead eternally driven lives that would radically alter the course of history for peoples, nations, tribes and tongues. And I want to be among them by life or by death. Redemptive history is full of stories about people like this. After a dramatic episode in Elijah’s life, the prophet fled to Mount Sinai in the Arabian wilderness in search of refuge. It was there that the Lord spoke to him about anointing his successor. He obeyed and set out in search of the young man that the Lord had chosen. One day he found Elisha. He found him plowing in a field with 12 yoke of oxen. He found a farmer, a herdsman, a pioneer.

Leverage Your Life for the Nations

He found a man caring for and bearing the burden of the family business. And with the flick of Elijah’s wrist and the throwing of his cloak, Elisha’s life was turned upside down and changed forever. Knowing that that fiery eyed prophet was beckoning him on a journey of a lifetime, Elijah counted the cost and then joyfully paid it. He made a fire, drew his blade, slaughtered his livestock, burned everything he had and followed after Elijah.

Our great task in this late hour of history is to follow one greater than Elijah into the greatest frontier of all. To lay foundations where there are none, and to take the gospel to those who’ve never heard it. May we, like Elisha, live and breathe to sacrifice and surrender all we have until our master receives all that he deserves. There is no higher call. Indeed, there are still frontiers.