My Commendation Of
You
2 Corinthians 9:7
The epistle of III John
was written by the Apostle John to commend Gaius for his hospitality and
generosity toward God's servants who were missionaries to the Gentiles (III
John 1-8). Following John's inspired example,I want to
commend you, the men and women of
Nine years ago, before
we had any house of worship, before we began any other work, before you were
able to support your own pastor as you desired, I asked you to make a
commitment to the support of gospel missionaries. We had no visible means of
doing so. But I was convinced then, as I am now, that where there is a will to
give God will supply the ability to give. As in all other things, you rallied
to your pastor's request. Some of you make great personal sacrifices to support
your own pastor, those faithful men who preach the gospel in foreign lands, and
needy pastors of smaller churches in this country. I cannot thank you enough,
or commend you too highly for your generosity in this regard. Today it is our
privilege to assist in the support of six faithful missionaries and their
families. These men do their work in relative obscurity. But these dearly
beloved men, their wives and their children, have my highest respect and
admiration. They have talents and abilities by which they could enrich
themselves in our society. But they have left the comforts of family, friends,
and luxury, their own culture and people, to live among other races in remote
parts of the world for one reason: God has called them, gifted them, and sent
them out to preach the glorious gospel of Christ. For the furtherance of the
gospel, the salvation of God's elect, and the gory of Christ they have gone
out. And for those same rea- sons,we support them.Those
six men and their wives are:
l. Milton and Claudia
Howard -
2. Walter and Betty
Groover -
3. Aaron and Monica
Dumas -
4. Daniel and Sandy
Parks -
5. Bill and Evelyn
Clark -
6. Ken and Mary Wimer -
How blessed we are to
have association with these choice servants of God in their work! I thank you
for your faithfulness in supporting them. And I thank God for his grace upon
you. God honors those who honor him. And we have been blessed of God,
abundantly blessed, since the day we began supporting these missionaries. We have lost nothing, but gained much, as our Lord promised (Luke
Don Fortner