Walking God’s
Trail
“Salvation
belongs to our God who sits upon the throne and unto the Lamb!”…Revelation 7:10
**The following article was originally written in the
magazine In Other Word (Volume 23, Issue 2)
Gikita was the leader of a small band of Waorani Indians
in Ecuador’s Amazonian jungle. On January
8, 1956, they speared and killed the five missionaries- Jim Elliot, Pete
Fleming, Ed McCully, Nate Saint, and Roger Youderian- who were attempting to
establish contact with them. Their
stories was told in the movie called "The End Of The Spear." When Life and Readers'
Digest magazines published the stories of
these martyrs, the world took note and the church began praying for both the
widows and this tribe of Waorani Indians.
(At the same time, this tribe was called Auca Indians, meaning “savages
who speared”; it was a derogatory name given them by neighboring tribes who
disliked and feared them.)
Two years after the killings, the widows Jim and Nate,
Elisabeth Elliot and Rachael Saint, accepted an invitation to live among the
Waorani and share the message of Jesus Christ leading to our Savior the very
leader responsible for their husbands’ deaths. Gikita later led his
people to put aside a lifestyle of revengeful warfare and killings. He longed for his people to know the
Lord and to be known not as Aucas, but rather by their own true name, Waorani,
“The People.”
A few months before his death in 1997, Gikita, age 80, said
to Steve Saint, son of martyred missionary Nate Saint, “I am old and have lived
enough. I just want to die and go
to live happily with your father in God’s place. But you stay here and keep telling the young people…to walk
God’s trail as I have done, so that in dying I will see them again, too, in
God’s place.”
Believers, and each of us personally, should be committed
to seeing stories like Gikita’s repeated in the lives of the millions of people
who have yet to hear the long-awaited good news of Jesus Christ. We
eagerly anticipate being ready to stand before the Lord of all creation and
witness His full revelation of each redemption story:
“Behold! A great multitude, which no man could number,
gathered out of all nations and kindreds and peoples and tongues. These stood before the throne and
before the Lamb…And in a loud voice, they cried saying, “Salvation belongs to
our God who sits upon the throne and unto the Lamb!”…The nations of those who
are saved shall walk in the light of it (God’s glory), and the kings of the
earth do bring their glory and honor into it.” Revelation 7:9,10; 21:24
God’s Word says that we can prepare ourselves to be sure
that we are among that numberless throng of Heaven’s citizens from all nations
and kindreds, people and tongues. Let’s look at four important
preparations:
1.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ that you might be saved. (Acts
16:30,31)
2.
Repent and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, that times
of
refreshing may come from the
presence of the Lord. (Acts 3:19)
3.
Prepare other people for the coming of the Lord. (Luke 1:16,17; Daniel
12:3)
4.
Develop a healthy appetite for righteousness. (Revelation 19:5-8;
Matthew
5:6)
Reflections:
1)
Thank God today for “His hands up” in your life and the freedom that you
have.
2)
Pray for countries that don’t share your freedom.
Consider reading the Word today:
copyright Terry Risser 2014
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