How Big Is Your World?

[Peki, Ghana] — One of the great things about travel is the opportunity to catch up on one’s reading.  While here I’ve been reading “Radical” by David Platt.  This is certainly a book worth reading.  I would encourage (yet warn) you to read this book.  It is a wonderful, challenging, and relevant book for today’s church.

One of the central themes of the book is the truth that God has saved every Christian “for a glorious, global, God-exalting purpose.”  He forthrightly states, “we have drawn a line of distinction, assigning the obligations of Christianity to a few while keeping the privileges of Christianity for us all.”

Are we guilty of this?

How often have you latched on to the promises of God?  You read things like, “cast all your care on Him, because He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7) or “Let not your heart be troubled …” (John 14:1ff) and accept them as a personal guarantee from God. These are but two of the many results of the Christian faith. By grace we have been given these precious promises and we are right to live inside these.

On the other hand, far too many people are quick to dismiss the responsibilities of our faith.  When Jesus says,  “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” Mark 16:15 (NKJV) we somehow try and assign this responsibility to others. We make statements like, “I’m not called to missions” or “what about the people around the corner?”  However, neither of these retorts are a release from the call of God upon our life for a global purpose.

When someone takes the position that “they are not called to global missions” I question  if they have been “called to Christ.”  If God has saved us for a global purpose, how can we be genuinely converted if we do not have a global heart?

Please never forget that Christians, world-wide, are our brothers and sisters.  We are all interconnected by the grace and glory of Jesus Christ.  The same one who saved you is the one who saved the people of Africa, Asia, the Middle-East and all parts of the globe.  We are sharing globally in the same calling … to impact and influence the world through the Gospel!

So, the question to us all is this:  “How big is your world?”  How are you being yielded to God today?  Does He have your unreserved obedience today?  Have you come to the place in your life when you fully acknowledge that all that He has bestowed upon you is for His glory and use?  I hope that we will together begin to accept the responsibilities of our faith.