Category: Devotion of the Day

Another Far Country

Go ye into all the world.
Mark 16:15

We are not only to see the King, we must serve the King. And the far country of service is as big as the world, for the world is our parish. Your own part of the Lord’s vineyard may be across the sea or just across the street, but what you do may reach around the earth.

Every Christian is a missionary, for all the world is a mission field. Do not think of missionaries as meaning only those witnesses abroad who have returned from Africa or Asia with pictures to show to sleepy church members in an after-meeting. If you cannot cross the sea in person you can project yourself by prayer and provision. You can pray laborers into the harvest and you can provide for them while they are in the harvest. The smallest country church may have a world-wide ministry and the lowliest Christian may touch earth’s uttermost corner.

“After he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavored to go” (Acts 16:10). The Vision, the Vista, the Venture! The “Lo” must be followed by the “Go.” Isaiah saw the King. He saw the country, “a people of unclean lips.” He heard the call, “Whom shall I send?” He answered it: “Here am I, send me.”

The Far Country of the Heavenlies has its counterpart in the Far Country of the Earthlies. The Mystery must be made known amidst the Misery!

The Fair King and the Far Country

Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off.
Isaiah 33:17

The vision of the King is followed by the View of The Land of Far Distances. After the Vision, the Vista. First, there is the Christian life itself opening up in all its limitless outreaches. We need not stand on Jordan’s stormy banks casting a wishful eye to Canaan’s fair and happy land, where our possessions lie. Canaan for the Christian is not heaven beyond but the heavenlies now, and he may follow his Joshua (“Jesus” is the same name) across Jordan and possess his possessions. The life that is hid with Christ in God is boundless in its possibilities, even in its earthly chapter now before the believer gets to glory.

Alas, too many of us are slack to possess the Promised Land. Like the Israelites in Canaan, we settle down in a little portion of it and compromise with what we should conquer. The average Christian needs to see the Far Country of a life of Spiritual victory wherein we reign now as well as after death. Blessed is he who having seen the King sees also what he himself may be now, as well as what he may become hereafter!

It is well to read in Revelation of what lies in the millennium ahead. It is also glorious to see in Ephesians the far country visible from the milestones today.