In our evil we rebel against God. We take the law of God, written in his Word and on our hearts, and we disobey it.

The key is realizing - and believing - that this world is not your home. If you and I ever hope to free our lives from worldly desires, worldly thinking, worldly pleasures, worldly dreams, worldly ideals, worldly values, worldly ambitions, and worldly acclaim, then we must focus our lives on another world.

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?

This is the reality about humanity. We are each born with an evil, God-hating heart. Genesis 8: 21 says that every inclination of man's heart is evil from childhood, and Jesus' words in Luke 11: 13 assume that we know we are evil.

God actually delights in exalting our inability. He intentionally puts his people in situations where they come face to face with their need for him.

If our lives do not reflect radical compassion for the poor, there is reason to wonder if Christ is really in us at all

And as we meet needs on earth, we are proclaiming a gospel that transforms lives for eternity. The point is not simply to meet a temporary need or change a startling statistic; the point is to exalt the glory of Christ as we express the gospel of Christ through the radical generosity of our lives.