Preach, Die, Be Forgotten

Count Nicolas Ludwig Von Zinzendorf und Pottendorf was known for the great Moravian missionaries that were birthed from his town of Hurrnhut Germany. The Moravians were known the world around for their incredible devotion to God and to the Gospel. The Moravians and Count Zinzendorf, as he is most commonly known, were devoted to the notion that those who were to serve God were to work amongst the people. It was taught that through earning their own wages and not through missionary support that they could be true salt and light. The only provisions that were made for a missionary from the church was to get them from Hurrnhut to a port where they might find passage by their own work aboard a ship. Typically when a missionary left, they left for good, to spend the rest of their lives where they landed.

Nicolas and those whom he commissioned as missionaries’ devotion to the gospel and the Christ of the gospel was astounding. On one instance a small group of single men who desired to give their lives to the cause of Christ, sold themselves into salary. Their attention was placed upon slaves and how unless slaves preached to slaves, Christ would not be know. It was this reality drove them to do what would normally be unthinkable. They offered themselves in exchange for money given to their family and boarded slave ships for the glory of God.

For the Moravian and for Zinzendorf, the only thing that mattered was the name and fame of Jesus Christ to all people’s no matter what the cost. The truth is, that the gospel is worth our all, because the God of the Gospel is worth our all. Oh that we might become enamored with Gospel so much that we too might cherish it above pride, possessions and even life itself!