Every Christian can become a foreign missionary. Here’s how I heard it shared in church by Keith Walde:
Time and talent, in spite of their otherwise good qualities, have one restriction. They cannot be stored or transferred easily. Time past is gone forever. Also talent cannot be stored for future use.
This brings us to the last of the three Ts of stewardship responsibility, which is treasure. Treasure, or money, is a possession. When we agree to work for someone, they agree to pay us an amount in exchange for our time and talent. So time and talent become money. This is the only way it can be stored.
But money has no value of itself. You can’t build a house out of money. Instead you must exchange it for building materials. So the only way money has value is when it’s reconverted to time and talent. When I buy lumber for my house, money has been converted back into the time and talent of those who made the lumber.
When you give money to the Lord’s work you are saying, “I want to give of my life for the work of Christ.” The mission then converts the money into time and talent for its needs.
Because of our higher wage scale, we can convert our money into the time and talent of as many as 30 or 40 workers in many mission locations. The wage scale there is two to three dollars a day.
I have determined for 2012 that after I have transferred work into money, I will not then transfer that money into health-destroying indulgences. Instead I would rather send it to missions to be turned back into work for Christ.
“Would that all who have the light of truth would follow the example set by Christ, and not expend their God-given time and ability and means in one or two places, when the light of truth is to go to all the world” (This Day With God, p. 107).