As I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: To the unknown God. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you. Acts 17:23, NKJV.
Jesus taught his followers that they were debtors both to the Jews and the Greeks, to the wise and the unwise, and gave them to understand that race distinction, caste, and lines of division made by human beings were not approved of Heaven, and were to have no influence in the work of disseminating the gospel. The disciples of Christ were not to make distinctions between their neighbors and their enemies, but they were to regard every person as a neighbor who needed help, and they were to look upon the world as their field of labor, seeking to save the lost.
Jesus has given to both men and women their work, taking them from the narrow circle which their selfishness has prescribed, annihilating territorial lines, and all artificial distinctions of society. He marks off no limited boundary for missionary zeal, but bids His followers extend their labors to the uttermost parts of the earth....
The field of labor presents one vast community of human beings who are in the darkness of error, who are filled with longing, who are praying to One they know not. They need to hear the voice of those who are laborers together with God, saying to them, as Paul said to the Athenians, “Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.”
The members of the church of Christ are to be faithful workers in the great harvest field. They are to be diligently working and earnestly praying, making progress, and diffusing light amid the moral darkness of the world; for are not the angels of heaven imparting to them divine inspiration? They are never to think of, and much less to speak of, failure in their work.... They are to be filled with hope, knowing that they do not rely upon human ability or upon finite resources, but upon the promised divine aid, the ministry of heavenly agencies who are pledged to open the way before them....
Angels of God will break the way before us, preparing hearts for the gospel message, and the promised power will accompany the laborer, and “the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward.”—The Review and Herald, October 30, 1894.
From To Be Like Jesus - Page 340
To Be Like Jesus