Throughout sixty six books of the Bible, God consistently uses ordinary people to accomplish his extraordinary work to redeem a people to Himself. We have an extraordinary opportunity at this point in history to place the Word of God to a world that is hungry for the Word. The movement to Christ in hard places is astounding. We see it in Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim contexts and in post Christian societies. There is a movement toward the Gospel.
While I get excited about the possibilities in our new vision to place one million Bibles, I remind myself every day how impossible this goal is. I’m just a retired guy in the suburbs. How can God use me in impactful ways? You might feel the same way and that’s not bad. God needs us to first recognize our total dependence upon Him to accomplish any meaningful Kingdom work. As I work toward implementing this vision, a daily reminder that “I can’t, but He can” creates the right posture of hard work while leaning totally on Gods enabling power.
Moses was a poor speaker and an unwilling selectee, but God used him to speak to the King. Gideon came from the lowliest clan and yet was selected to rescue Isreal. A very unschooled Peter and John preached in Acts 4 to the assembly of religious leaders. Abraham, an immigrant, a displaced citizen in a foreign land became father to a great nation. A refugee woman with no legal or political standing named Esther banished to a foreign land, and yet….
Go ahead and add your own favorite narratives of ordinary people being used by God to accomplish extraordinary things. There are many to choose from because God was, and is actively working through His people to restore relationship with the lost. We are a somewhat ragtag band of ordinary people, and yet God has placed us at the center of several great opportunities to feed Bibles into places where the Gospel is moving powerfully through unreached peoples. Some of the most closed places on the planet are open right now. God will use you, ordinary person, if you choose to step into the opportunity.
At our April 24 Bible Giving meeting, the IBG Board will host a celebration of giving one million Bibles in the first 35 years of IBG and officially launch the new vision of giving 1 million Bibles into hard places around the world while doubling again our domestic Bible-giving ministry. We will, of course, also be handing out Bibles to ministries as we always do.
Without doing any further development work, between just 2 ministry partners in Africa and Asia, we could place 90,000 Bibles right now to new believers. I can’t do that! You probably can’t either, but our God can! I invite you to come and celebrate how God has used ordinary people to place one million Bibles, and I encourage you to consider how you could actively support funding and delivering the next million Bibles. Invite your missions-minded friends, your missions Pastor or Director and your Missions team to come join us. Fill a table! We have sent out invitations to well over 100 area churches to invite them to come, but your personal invitation will be a much more effective invitation than my letter. Let’s gather, ordinary people!
Give Hope! Give Life! Give Bibles!
Chuck Hayes