Not Ashamed to be Alive

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation. Romans 1:16

Be not conformed to this world. Romans 12:2

As missionaries, we are the ones who don't conform to this world. People can pass off as Christians and still be conformed to this world, but missionaries can't. Who moves around the world, endures hardships, learns a new language and culture, while leaving theirs behind?

...Stuff is no match for "the power of God."
Lost people have always be cold to the Gospel. To use the terminology in Ephesians 2, they are DEAD to the gospel. We expect corpses to be cold, but not the living. That is why Christians get rebuked for lukewarmness, not the lost (Revelation 3: 15-17)....

Never before have I understood this. Now I know that Christians don't have the choice to be cold (to the gospel). If we are alive, why are we still without a pulse? Now I understand your spiritual health can have setbacks,  but it just doesn't stop. For non-Christians, they were never alive. How can you expect someone to act alive if they have not been raised to life? The dead cannot raise the dead. Nor can those who are alive. Only the one who is the source of life can raise the dead. It is not on my own power that I can be a missionary, but God's power alone.

...We tend to look at the people and say, "This gal would make a great Christian." or "That people group will never turn to Christ." That is a Christ-less way to look at the world. The first statement assumes some natural merit in the sinner. The second denies the savior's power.... 

What we should really say is that everyone would make an amazing Christian. Oftentimes the people we think would be farthest from the Gospel are the ones hearing God's knocking.

Our job is simply to proclaim the faith, faithfully and expectantly. Yes, some will reject the Truth, others will delay, but some will believe (Acts 17:32-34). 
No Satanic effort to halt the advance of the Gospel can be ultimately successful, but perhaps the Devil's best strategy to date is this global cooling of the Christian church through our own materialism and defeatist attitudes. Have the people around us become cold to the gospel? Perhaps the better question is this: Have we? 

The italicized portions of this text were taken from Gospel Meditations for Missions.