• 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!

Not my first choice

Posted on June 20, 2013 by wtdavid

“Christian discipleship may be summed up in one phrase: “dying daily.””  This is not what most people, including myself, are expecting from the Gospel.  Yet, each day, the Gospel invites us to lay self down in order to choose Christ.Dying-to-Self-logo

Honestly, I don’t do real well at this part.

My friends at World Harvest Mission are good at helping to rehearse what the Gospel means, and particularly what it means to lay self down:  “Faith is a kind of dying, because it means we must choose to believe things that are contrary to what we naturally think.  Repentance is dying, for it requires giving up our cherished desires.  Love means dying, for it means giving up our lives for the sake of others.”

“Giving up our lives for others” works itself out in our lives as we choose to move towards others in love when they are judging, accusing or criticizing us.  This can feel like death, but deeper relationship with others in the Gospel cannot take place without this kind of dying to self.

So, here’s the question I probably need to ask myself more: how will dying daily work itself out, practically, in my life?  Maybe considering how this worked out in Jesus’ life would be helpful (1 Peter 2.20-24)?

Filed under: Core Values, Gospel | Leave a comment »

What does it look like for you?

Posted on June 19, 2013 by wtdavid

Recently, I asked a number of WT workers if they could share in less than three minutes how our core values are being worked out in their personal, team and ministry lives.

Caressa is one of our appointees and this is what she shared.

Filed under: Core Values, Gospel | Leave a comment »

Trying to be better than you

Posted on March 7, 2013 by wtdavid

The music and chanting hasn’t stopped for several days. Though it seems the official cremation ceremony was last night, I was again awakened early by the chanting. Even though the ceremony may be over, it seems people still want to show how respectful they are of the deceased. However, they also want to show others how respectful they are. In a sense, they’re hoping to outdo others; to try and be better than others.humility sign

Pride and unbelief are at the heart of most of our failures. We are no more immune from being tripped up by these insidious motivations than the people chanting and singing down the street from here. Apart from holding firmly to Christ, my heart motivation will be to try and be better than you. What I need, what we need is gospel humility; a humility that comes from recognizing there is only one Rock on which I can stand and build my life and spiritual journey.

Psalm 62 speaks well to this need when David writes: “He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God. Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge to us.”

Do you notice who the focus is in this short text? It’s all about God. Everything should go back to him, not back to us and how we measure ourselves in relationship to others.

I know that the people singing and chanting down the street need Jesus, but do I know that I need Jesus again today as much as they do?

Filed under: Gospel, Humility | Leave a comment »

A beginning

Posted on April 30, 2012 by wtdavid

Today, the journey begins.  I have invited all of us as the World Team community to join me in reading and discovering together the message of the book, King’s Cross, by Tim Keller.

In his opening section, simply called “Before”, Keller summarizes the aim of his book: “It is an extended meditation on the historical Christian premise that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection form the central organizing principle of our own lives.  Said another way, the whole story of the world – and of how we fit into it – is most clearly understood through a careful, direct look at the story of Jesus.”  From the outset, Keller strives to focus our eyes on Jesus, rather than on our lives, work and ministries.  It is from that ‘look’ at Jesus that life, work and ministry flows.

The one statement that stood out for me in this section was when Keller described his own life-changing encounter with Jesus: “The best way I can put it is that, before the change, I pored over the Bible, questioning and analyzing it.  But after the change it was as if the Bible, or maybe Someone through the Bible, began poring over me, questioning and analyzing me.”  I guess I would have ordinarily used the first part of this phrase to describe the transformation that occurs when someone encounters Jesus. A new believer is someone who pores over the Bible, reading and studying it for themselves.

How many of us have watched with joy as a new believer takes a great delight in the Word?  But Keller is pointing to another indicator of that life-changing encounter with Jesus, namely that a new King now comes to reign in a person’s life.  Someone other than ourselves comes to pore over us, question us, analyze us, convict us, lift us up and restore value to us.

Here’s a question to ponder: what does that shift look like in my daily journey when God the Holy Spirit begins poring over me?

 

 

Filed under: Cross of Christ, Gospel, Reflection | 4 Comments »

The King and the Cross

Posted on February 13, 2012 by wtdavid

When we talk about the ‘ethos’ of World Team, we mean the environment or framework in which we carry out our work and ministry.  At the very least, this environment is structured by our global purpose, vision and values.  We currently affirm four core values: the Gospel, prayer and worship, interdependence, and developing and releasing leaders.

It is hard to talk about the Gospel as one of our values because it is the overarching, driving force behind all we do.  We do well to frequently remember and go over in our hearts what the Gospel means and what it brings to us.

To that end, I am inviting you as a World Team community to join me in reading this year, King’s Cross, by Dr. Timothy Keller [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kings-Cross-Story-World-Jesus/dp/1444702130/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329136272&sr=1-1]

We will begin an interactive discussion on the book in the next one to two months so as to give time for each of us to purchase or download this book.  I am willing to send PDF files of the opening chapters if you are in a place where getting a copy of the book will take some time.

Tim Keller makes this comment in the introduction to his work: “[This volume] is an extended meditation on the historical Christian premise that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection form the central event of cosmic and human history as well as the central organizing principle of our own lives.  Said another way, the whole story of the world – and of how we fit into it – is most clearly understood through a careful, direct look at the story of Jesus.”

May that serve as our expectation in reading this book together: that Jesus will become, more and more, the central organizing principle [Person] of our lives.

Filed under: Gospel, Reflection | 2 Comments »

What do we do if ministry has become an idol?

Posted on January 18, 2012 by wtdavid

Several of you shared the struggle that can easily arise as we let ministry become an ‘end all’ in our lives.  What do we do, though, when we become aware that we have “inflated something to function as a substitute for God”?  When something other than Jesus Christ has become our ‘savior’?

We should “turn and rush”. “For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.” (1 Thessalonians 1:9-10)

We should “turn”, that is, we should acknowledge our sin, own it and turn from it.  We call this repentance.  We should also “rush” back into the arms of Jesus, the One who saved us from the mess of sin.  We call this faith.   

Sounds straightforward in some respects, but we are all susceptible to the wiles of the evil one and our own sinful tendency towards excuses that keep us from acknowledging the depth of our sin and our great need of His love and forgiveness.  One writer has written: “Satan’s main temptation is to convince us that we are half the sinner we actually are and that we have half of Christ’s acceptance as we actually do.”  [Charles Spurgeon has a wonderful message which describes this response of turning from idols and rushing into His arms: http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/2236.htm]

This is why the community around us is so important.  We need others who can help us to ask those hard questions that dig deep to search out the roots of sin and idolatry in our lives.  We need others to remind us again and again and again of His unfailing love, forgiveness and righteousness.  This is the kind of community we should be building and nurturing around us.

 

 

Filed under: Assessment, Gospel | Leave a comment »

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