Jesus Is Not Safe

by Joe Thorn on November 20, 2005

Dave and AmyDave and Amy Rogers are missionaries with MAF to the the East Democratic Republic of Congo. Dave is not just some missionary, but a close friend from college who has come to worship with us from time to time. As missionaries Grace supports we were excited to have them come in and share their ministry with us, but I also wanted Dave to bring God’s word to us – to share what God was teaching him. So this morning I sat down and listened. Preaching from 1 Peter 4 Dave explained that God is more interested in His glory than our safety, and that his glory often comes at the cost of suffering: from the experience of Jesus, to Jim Elliot and Nate Saint and crew, to the very things that we are going through in our own lives we find this principle at work. Good stuff. Made me think of the words concerning Aslan in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. I can’t get to the book to grab the quote (my son is in bed, but not asleep and the book is in his room). But the question is asked of Aslan, “Is he safe?” And I believe one of the beavers replied, “Of course he is not safe! But he is good.”

We give a chunk of our offerings at Grace to the Cooperative Program of the SBC, but also want to be joined to other evangelical ministries outside of our Convention. Working with the Rogers and MAF is one of those ways. Pray for Dave and Amy as they head off to the Congo.

About Joe Thorn

I am the Lead Pastor of Redeemer Fellowship in Saint Charles, IL, and author of Note to Self: The Discipline of Preaching to Yourself. Jen is my wife, and Katherine, Elias, Madeline and Kilian are my kids.

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  • http://frontierwebdesign.com Chad

    A great quote from a great book!

  • http://sbcoutpost.blogspot.com Marty Duren

    Hey Man,
    It’s funny that Jim Elliott is most often mentioned in connection with the Waodani (Auca) incident, when it was Nate Saint that first spotted them and insisted that the 5 guys go it alone and whose family has maintained the ministry there for 50 years.

    I would encourage the watching of “Beyond the Gates of Splendor” available at Amazon.

    Joe, I agree that we must support missions outside the SBC, though we also support the CP strongly. We can’t do it all and we need to be seen as willing to cooperate outside our own programs. My take anyway.

  • http://www.doneydepot.blogspot.com Marcguyver

    Some good reminders here man! I really enjoy “The Voice of the Martyrs” ministry because of exactly what you just talked about. We here in America seem to often forget that this thing called ‘Christianity’ can actually cost us something….maybe even our physical well being or our very life!
    While it’s true that God can and does often ‘deliver us from evil’ so to speak, He also seems more than willing to let us endure evil from time to time as well. I’ve often thought how wonderful it would be to have my name added to the ‘Hall of Faith’ in Hebrews, but then I always think about whether or not I would be able to actually endure some of the things that it might cost me.

  • http://sbcoutpost.blogspot.com Marty Duren

    Marc,
    I think we often misapply “deliver us from evil” as deliverance from anything “bad.” What’s so “evil” about leaving this life and spending eternity in the presence of God?

    An incomplete worldview (one that isn’t fixed on things above, but on things on this earth) seems to feed this, imo.

  • Kiki

    It’s cool that you are supporting MAF. I agree that we have to work together and get past organizational walls.

    We were SBC missionaries, but had an MAF pilot who lived on the mission station with us in Zimbabwe. Uncle Dave Steiger was amazing. He will always be one of my heroes. Nate and Marj Saint actually recruited them to serve with MAF.

    He had fought in WWII, and was one of the first Americans to go into Papau, New Guinea and come out alive. That was back when cannibalism was still widely practiced on the island. In fact, he went in to recover the remains of a Senator’s son who had been eaten. He ended up going back and serving for years in New Guinea before coming to Africa.

    In Zimbabwe, he got shot down once, crashed once, and landed his Cessna 180 on every conceivable field, bush road, and surface imaginable. Once he radioed in and reported a sleeping python stretched across the runway. My Dad had to lasso it and pull it out of the way so Uncle Dave could land.

    In the years that he served with MAF, he saved hundreds if not thousands of lives. He was an amazing hunter, too. And could make some mean warthog ribs (we had to hunt for all of our meat.) His wife Janet was pretty incredible, too. They were Quakers, so taught our family a lot about farming and living off the land. She made homemade bread every day, and sewed beautiful dresses–not only for me, but for little kids in the villages who had never owned anything new in their whole lives.

    Uncle Dave and Aunt Janet modeled that fearless devotion to God that you were talking about in this post. Not once did I see them even hesitate to go into a dangerous situation in order to reach the lost for Christ. They lived their lives with passion and fire.

    Aunt Janet died last year, and Uncle Dave lives in Washington and still does volunteer work. I am thankful for their lives, their legacy, and for their example.

  • Kiki

    I need to correct one thing I wrote in the previous email. Uncle Dave was never able to recover the body of Senator Rockefeller’s son, Michael, but did participate in the search and learned the story of what probably happened to him. Another note: they were responsible for helping to open up the interior of Dutch New Guinea and Irian Jaya for multiple mission organizations. That story is actually chronicled in a book called “Wings Over Shangri-La.”

  • http://www.stevekmccoy.com/ Steve McCoy

    Geesh, I’m going to have to reintroduce your blog to the world whenever you decide to post again. ;)

  • http://blog.nelmezzo.net David Wright

    I echo Steve. After a week of bad vibes in the Christian blogosphere, I’m missing real words of grace.

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