• Our hope-filled future is bound up in sharing the story of Jesus, in discipling others, in bringing those disciples together into communities of believers, and in developing and releasing those believers to create other communities... till Jesus the King comes again!

Gospel calls forth commitment

Posted on December 18, 2024 by wtdavid

D.A. Carson, in his work Basics for Believers, wrote: “The heart of true fellowship is self-sacrificing conformity to a shared vision … Christian fellowship, then, is self-sacrificing conformity to the gospel … the heart of the matter is this shared vision of what is of transcendent importance, a vision that calls forth our commitment.”

The vision that D.A. Carson was talking about finds expression in this Advent season. From before the foundation of the world, God set forth His plan to bring a people to Himself. Despite the many struggles and failures of His creation, He continued to prepare the way of salvation and by His prophets announced the coming of the “One who would save us from our sins”.  Jesus came into the world that He had created in order to offer Himself as a sacrifice to deliver us from this present evil age (Galatians 1:4)

The vision that we share is not based on our collective wisdom, but on God’s amazing grace demonstrated to us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And our fellowship is centred around a call to each and everyone one of us to conform our hearts and lives to the wonder of the gospel: that we should be called children of the most High God.

That “self-sacrificing conformity to the gospel” will free us to …

  • Be quicker to admit our failures and the pain we may have caused others
  • Be quicker to ask for and offer forgiveness
  • Remind one another more regularly of the truth that the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever
  • Take one another’s hand to work together to see our vision become reality: that disciples and communities of believers would be multiplied among the lost peoples of this world!

May your celebration of Jesus’ coming into this world be a filled with joy and wonder at His boundless love for His people!

Filed under: Advent, Fellowship, Gospel | 3 Comments »

Starting Again

Posted on September 24, 2024 by wtdavid

It’s that time of year when you are either in the rush of a new academic and ministry year (Northern hemisphere) or moving to the end of your school & ministry year. Either way, it’s a time to step back and remember how God has shown grace to you as His child and how He has used you in His greater missional plan for this world.

Again and again, the Bible calls us to remember: “I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your wonder of old. I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds.”  (Psalm 77:11-12). The work of remembering has an active rather than a passive sense.  In the Hebrew Bible, the word is: zakar. It means to call to mind, to recall or to recount. It speaks of bringing something to the forefront of one’s mind. One writer put it this way: “to zakar is to employ your hands and feet and lips to engage in whatever action that remembrance requires.”

When we think of the good news that we share, it is so important to remember how this good news is good news for us. We need to “recount” it again to ourselves (and others) today and each day.

This new start or end to our year is also a time to refocus our hearts and minds on what is our calling, our dream as mission community: to multiply disciples and communities of believers among the lost.

It’s easy for us to lose sight of that larger dream and vision in the rush of the new year or at the end of that year. However, we need to remind one another of our calling as a community.

“Multiplying” is not something that occurs in a moment. It is an investment in others. It calls for time spent sharing, talking, training, and platforming others. However, the result is that multiplying disciples (and leaders) and communities of believers bears fruit exponentially. Exponentially in the sense that there are more and more and more workers engaging in God’s project to bring the message of Jesus to this world which is in such great need.

Both remembering and multiplying require energy and investment. But the fruit is well worth the energy and investment.

If interested, I recently wrote a book review of the book: Multiplying Leaders in Intercultural Contexts for the journal SEEDBED: https://www.seedbedjournal.com/. The book will give you some tools as to how to remember and invest in others.

Filed under: Gospel, Leader development, Multiplication | 4 Comments »

Gospel Growth — Take 2

Posted on July 8, 2024 by wtdavid

The Gospel speaks deeply to our hearts because it daily reminds us of the free grace, forgiveness and honour that is bestowed upon us.  However, the Gospel can often feel “distant” from our day to day existence. We need to see and learn its relevance to our lives and ministry.

The WT Ministry Framework puts it this way: “The Gospel is how any and all spiritual change happens in the lives of individuals, groups, and institutions of people. Therefore, it informs every ministry and is our most fundamental point of reference and principle in every action, plan, and strategy. This principle, before all others, guides us in the decisions we make, the solutions we embrace, the way we conduct our ministries and our relationships with others.”

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to let several WT workers share how the Gospel is changing them, transforming their hearts in different ways and in different contexts.  Here’s a another story from a WT worker’s journey:

“One special moment happened when I finally put my new understanding of God’s grace into a quote that I now often use, “The proportion to which you understand your depravity is the proportion to which you understand grace.” I had never deeply understood how only Jesus’ sacrifice was able to take away my sins and I could do nothing to please Him or have Him love me more.  It was already done. 

Another way to put it is: “Little depravity demands little grace.”  That was one of my most powerful discoveries: that I was totally depraved and without hope!  But the grace of Christ covers all my depravity/lacking/sin, etc.  I think I came to understand very clearly that without the blood of Christ to cover me I am hopelessly lost and condemned.  I think I felt I was okay most of the time because I was doing pretty good.  But I had to scrape every bit of my self-effort as having any value for God to accept me.  That was freedom.” 

A question to consider: What quote might best summarize your current understanding of grace and the Gospel?

Join us on the journey by sharing your story about the Gospel: https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=E4rd-dxEeUymdtc3N8hETz_lXY4QRJ5ClTCIuVdURgFUQzFHUDI5U0w4SUFOQjY3QzQ3NUtXQjI0WS4u

Filed under: Gospel, Grace, Love of God | 6 Comments »

Gospel growth

Posted on June 20, 2024 by wtdavid

The Gospel speaks deeply to our hearts because it daily reminds us of the free grace, forgiveness and honour that is bestowed upon us.  However, the Gospel can often feel “distant” from our day to day existence. We need to see and learn its relevance to our lives and ministry.

The WT Ministry Framework puts it this way: “The Gospel is how any and all spiritual change happens in the lives of individuals, groups, and institutions of people. Therefore, it informs every ministry and is our most fundamental point of reference and principle in every action, plan, and strategy. This principle, before all others, guides us in the decisions we make, the solutions we embrace, the way we conduct our ministries and our relationships with others.”

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to let several WT workers share how the Gospel is changing them, transforming their hearts in different ways and in different contexts.  Here’s the first story of one WT worker’s journey:

“One day K. invited us to his grandmother’s birthday party. We would be the only non-family members there but that didn’t matter because we would be treated as one of them. I drove to the local grocery store, grabbed a gift for his grandmother and drove back to our apartment to pick up my wife and child. Then crash! To my horror, in my rushing, I crashed into a column in the parking garage. I was guilty. I was negligent in my driving. I ran upstairs and began to cry. I was ashamed. How was I going to show my face at the party? How was I going to tell my friend that I had damaged his beautiful, new car?

By now the party had started. I got the courage and called my friend. “I am so ashamed”, I started with, “I crashed your car.”  Beautifully and gracefully my friend refused to shame or guilt me. He told me that it was his car, and he would take care of it. He refused to let me pay, knowing that I did not have the means, and forgave me the debt I now owed him. And then he began to plead, “Just come to the party. We want you here.” I deserved shame, and he gave me honor. In that moment I was reminded of the gospel.”  

A question on which to reflect: What hope do we have in the Gospel that frees us to admit our wrongs?

Join us on the journey by sharing your story about the Gospel: https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=E4rd-dxEeUymdtc3N8hETz_lXY4QRJ5ClTCIuVdURgFUQzFHUDI5U0w4SUFOQjY3QzQ3NUtXQjI0WS4u

Filed under: Godly living, Gospel, Holiness | 2 Comments »

Three things

Posted on March 27, 2024 by wtdavid

A shout out to Craig for his reminder a week ago at the WT Spain retreat that the Gospel calls us to remember three theological truths: justification, redemption, and propitiation.

Justification. God chooses, based on the work of Jesus Christ, to declare us not guilty; to credit the righteousness of Christ to our account in exchange for Christ taking on our sins upon Himself.  To put it another way, He restores honour to the creature who had shamed the Creator.  And for the purpose of God being glorified for His work on behalf of His people.

Redemption.  As one writer put it: “The language of redemption is the language of purchase and more specifically of ransomed.”  Sin had enslaved us in spiritual bondage. Jesus went down into the marketplace of sin (see Hosea 3) and bought us back, securing for us liberty and freedom from the power of sin in our lives.

Propitiation.  “Propitiation presupposes the wrath and displeasure of God, and the purpose of propitiation is the removal of this displeasure.”  Jesus Christ became the perfect sacrifice needed, so that when God turns His face from all His creative work in the world and sets His gaze upon us, He sees Christ.

What Craig did in several short teaching sessions was to focus our hearts and minds on the depth of the Gospel.  He pushed us to consider the amazing grace of the Gospel. And to take time to plunge ourselves further into understanding the Gospel and considering the application of the Gospel to what happens in our lives and ministries.

Feeling more the weight of our sin in light of God’s holiness; the damage of the shame we bring to Him by our actions, heightens our appreciation of the wonder of His love toward us (Romans 1-8).

Thanks Craig!  But more importantly, thank you God for your steadfast love and mercy shown to thousands; and for that love and mercy which continues to reach across time from generation to generation to generation!

Filed under: Gospel, Grace, Theology | 2 Comments »

You are not alone

Posted on March 19, 2024 by wtdavid

One of the daily phrases that we heard at the Global 3C conference was: “You are not alone”!

That statement Alissa shared at the conference can be pulled from numerous texts in the Bible:

Deuteronomy 31:8 – “It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”

Joshua 1:5 – “Just as with Moses, so I will be with you.  I will not leave you or forsake you.”

Matthew 28:20 – “Teaching them observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

John 14:18 – “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”

Hebrews 13:5 – “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.””

This truth certainly “warms” our hearts and comforts us in times of difficulties and struggles.

However, the more important question we need to ask ourselves is: How does this truth work itself more deeply into our hearts?  How does it help us in some small way sense that “peace that passes all understanding” and that guards our hearts and minds in Christ?

Possible answers to that question are not so simple. It would be much easier if one knew that by repeating this truth to oneself or by memorizing Deuteronomy 31:8, things would go much better and one wouldn’t be so anxious at times.

One place to begin is by asking trusted colleagues what it might look like to remember that “I am not alone”; that God goes with me into whatever day or situation I might find myself.

Or you might choose to read one chapter out of Gentle & Lowly by Dane Ortlund and share what you learn with another brother or sister.

Or you might challenge yourself to memorize with a small group the 1st question of the Heidelberg Catechism.  And then share with each other once a week what you learned from just thinking about the first phrase or the second phrase of the answer to question #1.

Or you might seek to develop the reflex that when a struggle or difficulty arises, and you feel alone that you call another believer and share with them that you are “feeling alone” and need the reminder of His presence.

None of these answers is a “cure all” but they might bring other ideas to mind that would help you to drive this truth more deeply into your heart that: “You are not alone!”

Filed under: God's presence, Gospel | 2 Comments »

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