Reconsecration to a Wartime, Not a Peacetime, Lifestyle - by Ralph Winter

Below are some quotes from Ralph Winter's classic article:

Obedience to the Great Commission has more consistently been poisoned by affluence than by anything else. The antidote for affluence is reconsecration.

There will only be a way if there is a will. But we will find there is no will:
- so long as the Great Commission is thought impossible to fulfill
- so long as anyone thinks that the problems of the world are hopeless or that, conversely, they can be solved merely by politics or technology
- so long as our home problems loom larger to us than anyone else's
- so long as people enamored of Eastern culture do not understand that Chinese and Muslims can and must as easily become evangelical Christians without abandoning their cultural systems as did the Greeks in Paul's day
- so long as modern believers, like the ancient Hebrews, get to thinking that God's sole concern is the blessing of our nation
- so long as well paid evangelicals, both pastors and people, consider their money a gift from God to spend however they wish on themselves rather than a responsibility from God to help others in spiritual and economic need
- so long as we do not understand that he who would seek to save his life shall lose it


When will we recognize the fact that the wrath of God spoken of in the Bible is far less directed at those who sit in darkness than it is against those who refuse to share what they have?

If the the average mission supporter is only five pounds overweight, it means he spends [on food], to his own hurt, at least five times as much as he gives for missions. If he were to choose simple food (as well as not overeat) he could give ten times as much as he does to mission and not modify his standard of living in any other way!...the overall lifestyle to which Americans have acquiesced has led us to a place where we are hardening our hearts and our arteries simultaneously.

I believe that God cannot expect less from us as our Christian duty to save other nations than our own nation has required of us in times of war in order to save our own nation