The faith in Christ that saves us from our sins involves an internal transformation that has external implications.

Christianity does not start with an invitation we offer to Jesus, but with an invitation Jesus offers to us.

Somewhere along the way we have subtly and tragically taken the costly command of Christ to go, baptize, and teach all nations and mutated it into a comfortable call for Christians to come, be baptized, and listen in one location.

That is relinquishing control in a culture that prioritizes control and doing what you need to do in order to advance yourself.

Do you and I believe him (Christ) enough to obey him and to follow him wherever he leads, even when the crowds in our culture - and maybe in our churches - turn the other way?...For the sake of an increasingly marginalized and relatively ineffective church in our culture, I want to risk it all. For the sake of my life, my family, and the people who surround me, I want to risk it all.

We go wherever God leads whenever God moves us...because we love His glory more than we love our lives.

As Elisabeth Elliot points out, not even dying a martyr’s death is classified as extraordinary obedience when you are following a Savior who died on a cross. Suddenly a martyr’s death seems like normal obedience.