Focus 2020 – The Great Commission: Perspectives from LeadersSample

Radical Selflessness 

Bible passage: Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25 Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.” John 12:23-26 

Devotional: 

Imagine two pandemics that decimated 30 percent of an empire’s population, including three emperors! The Roman Empire reeled from these realities in the second and third century A.D. Yet in the midst of despair and death, the radical selflessness of God’s people was producing incredible fruit.  

During the worst periods of the Roman plagues, many influential and wealthy people escaped to their countryside estates for safety. It was the Christians who remained, took in orphans, fed widows, and tended to the infected, even though it cost some their own lives. (It is worth noting that all this took place during periods of intense persecution against Christians.) Although we do not know the names of these courageous Christians, their actions advanced God’s Kingdom in powerful ways, laying spiritual foundations that would transform the entire empire into a Christian one a century later.  

As the Great Commission community, we seek to make Jesus famous in every part of the world, among every people group. Often, we are met with skepticism, derision, or apathy. But in the face of tangible acts of radical selflessness—the kind that is foreign to the world—the philosophical arguments and accusations of hatred and intolerance are silenced.  

A pneumonic plague with a 100 percent fatality rate was another such example. In northeast China and southeast Russia, during the coldest months of 1910-11, this devastating disease took the lives of over 60,000 people. A British medical missionary, Arthur Jackson, volunteered to serve among poor day-laborers in Shenyang. Sadly, only eight days after arriving at the hospital (and six months after departing for missionary service), the 26-year-old doctor contracted the plague and died within a day.  

Non-Christians in China were dumbfounded by the willingness of a young doctor to give up his lucrative career back home to serve among the least desirable of society. Although many Chinese were highly suspicious of Christians during that period, Arthur’s sacrifice moved non-Christian reporters to perfectly summarize the Gospel in Chinese newspapers: 

“Now he has given his only life for the lives of others, we see that he was a true Christian, who has done what Jesus did thousands of years ago.” 

What answers apathy? What silences skepticism? What advances God’s Kingdom around the world, bringing Him glory? Christians following their Savior to live out radical selflessness. In today’s highly connected world, let’s create and spread new stories of radical selflessness as inspiration to believers and witness to non-Christians. #RadicalSelflessness 

Quote: What answers apathy? What silences skepticism? Christians following their Savior to live out radical selflessness. 

Question: During this COVID-19 period, what are unique opportunities to demonstrate radical selflessness among those we aim to serve—acts of sacrifice that transcend social expectation and understanding?  

Frank Y 

Acting Executive Director, UB Global