As I looked at material and spiritual poverty in the world around me, including approximately 2 billion people who haven't even heard the gospel, I knew that I needed to make some major changes in my life.

What if the very reason we have breath is because we have been saved for a global mission? And what if anything less than passionate involvement in global mission is actually selling God short by frustrating the very purpose for which he created us?

We assume that our race simply deserves heaven; that God owes heaven to us unless we do something really bad to warrant otherwise.

Satan's strategies to stop the church will ultimately serve to spread the church. And Satan's strategies to inflict earthly pain in your life will ultimately serve to increase eternal glory with your God; 'Light momentary affliction.'

This extremely shocking and utterly revolutionary call is the essence of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus: we are not called to simply believe certain points or observe certain practices, but ultimately to cling to the person of Christ as life itself.

If we are going to accomplish the global purpose of God, it will not be primarily through giving our money, as important as that is. It will happen primarily through giving ourselvs. This is what the gospel represents and this is what the gospel requires.

The gospel confronts us with the hopelessness of our sinful condition. But we don't like what we see of ourselves in the gospel, so we shrink back from it.