The High Cost Of Being Lost (And What We Can Do About It)

While contemplating eternal judgment is painful, the Church cannot jettison the idea because of its discomfort or because non-Christians scoff at such notions. Our response to the challenge of reaching the lost must start now.

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10).

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners … (1 Timothy 1:15).

We sat in a courtyard on the outside wall of a famous temple. I was with friends who had invited me to join them in researching one of the world’s most unreached people groups. I sat facing 200 to 300 older people, chatting in animated fashion. Behind us was a shrine. We learned the people would spend a month in the capital city doing religious rituals before heading back to their villages.

It was a profoundly moving moment for all of us as the reality struck so forcefully that all of these elderly people were beyond the reach of any Christian witness. Near the end of their lives, living in a people group with some of the least access to the gospel in the world, they faced eternity with no knowledge of the saving message of Jesus.

I have spent nearly 28 years living among a Buddhist people whose population includes only 0.3 percent of Protestant Christians of any stripe. Surrounding me are millions of people who have yet to meet a Christian or hear a relevant presentation of the gospel. Isolation from the Christian message is not an intellectual concept of academic interest for me. The spiritually lost state of humanity disturbs me. There are days when it feels overwhelming.

As we walked away from the courtyard that day, my eyes filled with tears, and my heart grew burdened in prayer. In today’s world, referring to people as lost and separated from God is unpopular, particularly in the west. Those who claim all paths lead to God would call my burden for these people misplaced. The Scriptures answer the objections and questions of Christians and non-Christians alike. We must go back to the Bible to see what it means to be lost and how we should respond to a lost world. Read more