Tag Archives: religion

Nov 02 2024
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Ephesus to India: Power, Opposition, and the Unstoppable Gospel

The Book of Acts, written almost 2,000 years ago, serves as a template for God’s workings at any time in the history of Christ’s followers, including our own. It reveals human nature in its response to God. This includes Acts 19 which records Paul’s mission to Ephesus.

In Paul’s day, Ephesus was a vital port city, its impressive buildings constructed of fine marble. The city was dominated by the overpowering presence of the white marble temple to the goddess, Artemis (or Diana), widely worshipped throughout the Mediterranean region. Millions of pilgrims flocked to Ephesus to worship at this temple, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

This worship of Artemis went back more than 1,000 years. It was a highly entrenched religion that dominated the region, like Hinduism in Varanasi or Islam in Mecca. A myth grew up among Artemis followers that in ancient days, her statue descended from heaven.

Paul came to Ephesus to introduce Jesus Christ and challenge this deeply rooted religious culture. Fearlessly, he proclaimed Jesus as Lord, and he depended upon the Holy Spirit to do what rational argument alone could never do.

Dr. Luke tells us that notable miracles took place. Handkerchiefs and aprons, touched by Paul, become instruments of healing and deliverance from demons. This demonstration of the gospel by power as well as word won people to Christ in droves as they saw Jesus do what Artemis had never done.

Not everyone was happy about this. The silversmiths, who got rich selling silver idols of Artemis to devotees, saw their profits dwindle as Jesus gained influence. They reacted with venom against Paul’s “attack on society”. Others envied what they wrongly perceived was Paul’s magical powers and coveted this power for their own selfish ends.

What took place in Ephesus during Paul’s ministry was truly a power encounter with Satan, who long blinded the people, and the power of Jesus Christ who opens blind eyes. The clash between God and Satan broke out into the visible human realm at Ephesus.

Paul did not flee but stood firm and discipled the new believers. The Ephesian church grew fast. The Ephesians became a bright light for the gospel. Later, Paul wrote his epistle to these former worshippers of Artemis and praised their mature faith in Jesus Christ.

The happenings at Ephesus take place in India today as we see God answer your prayers and the prayers of His people in India. The Word of God is both preached and demonstrated in power with healings, deliverance from demons and other signs and wonders. An entrenched religious system is being challenged by the living and powerful Jesus Christ who is opening eyes once blinded by the devil.

At the same time, opposition has come thick and fierce from those who enrich themselves through the status quo and accuse Christians of “destroying society.” The enemy comes armed with entrenched traditions backed by overwhelming political and financial power.

Despite the opposition, the Holy Spirit enables us to train new disciples and send more harvest workers. Quietly, former believers of old religions enter their workplaces and schools to counteract this influence at the grass roots with the power of Christ in word and deed.

May what happened in Ephesus take place all over India in coming days — and in the place where you live and work!

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May 03 2024
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Resistance Against Truth

“These men have upset the world!”

These charges were leveled at Paul and Silas after they preached the Good News in Thessalonica. They must have done a great job in making the gospel clear to all who heard them. Acts 17 tells us that many people came to Christ, both Jews and Gentiles. For these people, the gospel was a welcome fragrance.

To others, it was the stench of death. Some Jews hated the message, and wanted to make Paul and Silas pay for ruining their day. They accused Paul and Silas of promoting another ruler besides Caesar. These Jews hated the rule of Caesar, but they hated Jesus even more.

This episode illustrates a truth about the Good News. Even when clearly presented, it will win some and infuriate others, even to the point of violence. In one person, the Holy Spirit brings new life; in another, the gospel reveals spiritual death.

Why do people reject the gospel? Such people love their sin above all else and resent having it exposed by the light of Christ and told that it is evil. They want to call evil good, to run their own lives without accountability to anyone, including God who made them.

No doubt some people who opposed Paul and Silas were religious, but they were dead to the true God. They wanted to turn the truth of God into something that sounded moral and sounded comfortable. As such, it was something less than truth. They preferred a god that helped them feel good about themselves, not repent. When Paul and Silas reminded them of their sin and God’s holiness, they recoiled.

Paul and Silas did not follow the seeker-friendly approach popular in many churches today. The seeker-friendly approach may lead people to adopt certain ideas from the Bible that appeal to them, but fail to reveal sin leading to repentance. They become devoted to their own ideas of God more than to God Himself.

A spiritually dead person can have spiritual longings, but they are always less than God. They still hate the true God even when they speak in moral and spiritual ways. In real life, they operate according to natural thinking.

The seeker-friendly approach operates on the false premise that one can share the gospel and lead a person to God without upsetting anyone. The seeker-friendly approach is a sign of how much the culture has impacted the church more than the church has impacted the culture.

George Barna reports that in his research, he has found that only 6% of today’s adults have a biblical worldview. The average American church person’s dominant worldview, he says, is syncretism, a collection of contradictory beliefs pasted together to suit themselves. A growing number of people in churches believe in reincarnation and that people are basically good. Fewer pastors preach the gospel with the clarity of Paul and Silas.

Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. He has already defeated Satan at the cross and invites us to join Him in enforcing His victory. He also warns us that Satan will go down swinging hard.

Let us move forward like Paul and Silas, assured of victory but also steeled for resistance from those who refuse to bow the knee to the King of kings. Let us remember that Jesus has already won.

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Apr 07 2024
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God’s Unexpected Choices

God can work through anybody! That is a vital lesson we can all learn from Acts 16.

In Acts 16, Paul takes the gospel for the first time to Europe. His venture plants a gospel beachhead in a pagan Roman colony, Philippi—through a woman. In Paul’s day, women were supposed to stay home, not start new and earthshaking movements. The woman, Lydia wasn’t even a native of the city, but came from Asia Minor.

She followed the God of the Jews, but there were not even enough Jews in Philippi to start a synagogue. So, she just met with a small band of other like-minded Gentile women at the riverbank. With this seemingly woeful and unnoticed group, Paul began his ministry—and ultimately changed a continent. As we read on, Lydia became a more dynamic believer and leader than anyone expected. Another example…

In those early days of ministry in Philippi, Paul and his companion-in-ministry, Silas, delivered a girl possessed of demons. That miracle unjustly landed them in jail because Paul ended the livelihood of those who exploited the poor girl’s misery for profit.

Instead of complaining, Paul and Silas praised God for His many blessings which outweighed their present trials. God responded with an earthquake that caused chaos in the prison. The jailer almost committed suicide, thinking all his prisoners had escaped, and he would now suffer death from his superiors for losing them.

This jailer was likely a cynical man hardened by the dregs of humanity. There was nothing religious or idealistic about him, and yet something about the lives of Paul and Silas touched him. In his sudden weakness, the shaken man approached them and asked, “What must I do to be saved?” That night, we are told, the jailer and his entire household—wife, children, relatives, servants—put their trust in Jesus Christ.

This unlikely woman, Lydia, and unnamed Roman jailer, along with his household, became part of the new fellowship of believers in Philippi. Every believer who comes from a European heritage or has received guidance through European believers ultimately owes a spiritual debt to these two unlikely people for an important reason…

The Philippian church did not become a self-centered, religious social club. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul praises the Philippians for their faith and vision for the lost. They were not content to keep the faith to themselves but joined Paul’s mission to deliver the faith to Thessalonica and the center of Rome itself.

Let us not forget that Paul himself was an unlikely messenger—a “Jew of the Jews,” a former terrorist and fanatic who became God’s messenger to the Gentiles he once despised.

The lesson is clear: never underestimate what God can do through you no matter what you or others may think of your abilities. God is always able to work in unexpected ways in unexpected people to accomplish His greater work.

I see this all the time as I meet with Indian evangelists and pastors. Again and again, IGO training centers graduate men and women from the most unlikely backgrounds whom God has called to do great things for the Kingdom.

What unlikely and unthinkable thing is God willing to do through you to affect lives and destinies of people for generations to come?

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Sep 08 2023
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What Made This Church So Great?

If the conversion and Holy Spirit filling of the Samaritans, the Ethiopian eunuch and the Roman centurion Cornelius seemed radical to Jewish believers, what happened at Antioch must have gone off the charts.

The three people mentioned above were considered Gentiles, but they had at least some connection to the Jewish traditions. The people of Antioch were total pagans in just about every way imaginable, and then some. Yet in Acts 11, Luke portrays a fellowship of Jesus followers that has become a model for us in our own day.

Antioch became the gospel gateway to the rest of the Gentile world, the missionary headquarters leading to Europe, the rest of the Roman Empire, and ultimately, to us today. In Antioch, Jesus followers first became known as “Christians,” a term that once had a meaning far beyond the established religious groups we know today. What makes the Antioch church so great?

No one knows who founded the Antioch church—probably an unknown lay person. Whoever it was, the church also had supernatural roots. “The hand of the Lord was upon them,” Luke records. What a remarkable description! They depended upon the power of God, not their own knowledge and ingenuity. They heard the voice of God and saw Him work miracles in their midst. Programs were less important than people and the pleasure of God’s company.

As a result, record numbers of people from pagan backgrounds were turning to Christ from every background. They hungered for fellowship with God and with one another. They became involved in serious and effective prayer. They heard God speak to them through the Word. They had a Great Commission vision for the world. Deep understanding and application of the Word was vital to them.

From the Antioch church Paul launched his great missionary journeys that ultimately spread the gospel throughout the Roman Empire. Many other lesser known but powerful missions to the world had their beginnings at Antioch because the people there believed in self-multiplication.

Personal and corporate discipleship was the rule. Continuous spiritual growth and maturity was the goal. These people in the Antioch church were not rural hillbillies but sophisticated and cosmopolitan men, women and children from the third largest urban center in the Roman Empire.

Another unprecedented feature: Jewish and Gentile believers fellowshipped with one another. In today’s culture, that would be like Brahmans eating with Dalits, or whites hanging out with Black Lives Matter folks, or hippie-types enjoying fellowship with corporate executives. Such phenomena are “God things,” impossible to reproduce apart from a move of the Holy Spirit.

How many of our own churches today resemble the church in Antioch? As Henry Blackaby has said, “We have become satisfied today to live without the manifest presence of God.”

In spite of Bible resources unavailable to any previous generation, few church members today open their Bibles or pray. Few church members demonstrate any power of the Holy Spirit. Few church members have any vision for the world. Few churches are little more than religious social clubs. It is no wonder that the world as a whole considers the church powerless, useless and irrelevant.

Pray for revival and renaissance in the church. Pray that every fellowship returns to the Antioch model. Only then will we see our world change.

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Aug 10 2023
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Breaking Tradition

Jesus tells us to pray “thy kingdom come…on earth as it is in heaven.” John, His disciple, tells us, “The Son of God [Jesus] appeared…to destroy the works of the devil”
(1 John 3:8).

In other words, we as Jesus’ followers have marching orders. We are engaged in a spiritual war to regain territory from an illegal occupier, Satan, who stole it from us through deceit. Through the cross, he has no further authority to keep it. The mission involves both angelic and human forces obedient to Jesus, our Commander-in-Chief.

Military operations require an overall plan and objective that unfolds in different phases. The operation depends upon troop flexibility to shift direction and action at a moment’s notice.

Acts 10 exemplifies one of those momentous shifts.

Phase one began with the Abrahamic Covenant. Most Jews came to see this as a covenant exclusive to themselves. Everyone else was regarded as “gentile,” or pagan, though God told Abraham, “Through you all the nations will be blessed.” For most Jews, this part was forgotten.

Before Jesus ascended into heaven, He told His disciples they, the Jewish believers, would take the gospel to the “uttermost parts of the earth,” that is, to the outside Gentile world.

Peter, Jesus’ disciple and apostle of the early church, was a traditional and patriotic Jew. But Jesus wanted him to preach the gospel, not only to a man and his household regarded as outside the Covenant, but who came from among hated Roman conquerors. This Roman officer, Cornelius, had learned to worship the true God, but because he was “gentile,” his faith was regarded as inferior. For Peter to willingly obey this order required a massive paradigm shift.

God required him to abandon 2,000 years of traditional thinking at a moment’s notice. In Acts 10, Peter’s housetop vision (repeated three times) prepared him for his mission, with God commanding him to kill and eat animals regarded as unclean by Jewish law. In the vision, Peter at first refuses this order, saying, “By no means, Lord!”

In the end, Peter gets the message. He obeys God and preaches the gospel to Cornelius and his household. They all commit their lives to Christ and experience the filling of the Holy Spirit, identical to what happened to the blood children of Abraham at Pentecost.

This event is so momentous to Peter and to the Jewish believers that they marvel over it in the next chapter. They are advancing in their faith, but they are still learning about God’s overall plan to destroy the works of the devil and to bring the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. They didn’t have the whole picture, and neither do we. We receive it just one order at a time.

Are we ready to abandon at a moment’s notice beloved and familiar traditions to destroy Satan’s work and reassert Christ’s authority? Are we willing to accept people as fellow believers whose looks and ways differ from our cherished expectations?

As we learn in Acts 10, God still brings blessings to and through the very people we least expect and whom we even despise. God’s love and mercy is greater than our own. His sovereignty is more sovereign than we know. His grace is more gracious, His love more loving.

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Jul 09 2021
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What Does Abundant Life Look Like?

In John 9, Jesus heals a beggar blind from birth, enabling him to live a full life, not just live on the edge of life. The religious leaders of the day opposed this healing for silly and irrelevant reasons. In John 10, Jesus responded to the religious leaders with the parable of the Good Shepherd (Himself), contrasting Himself with the false shepherds of that day.

Unlike the false shepherds, Jesus says, “I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”

What would Jesus say about today’s prominent religious leaders and Christians? Do we live the abundant life, reflecting our Master? Truth is, to the world, the church often appears weak and irrelevant. Too many churches do not preach the Word. They dilute the gospel and its mission. Its people are rampant in unbelief. Its young people look elsewhere for answers the church does not provide.

Christian marriages fail as often or more than those in the world. Where are the signs and wonders? How many churches go for years without a single conversion or baptism?

Recently, I heard of a church that was closed down and sold to Buddhists. Weak preaching and teaching and lack of faith in God’s power gave the people no motivation to keep coming. The few who were left sold the building to the highest bidder. False shepherds.

We have more Bible reference books than ever, better-trained pastors—but more ignorance. Most people still cannot give a reason for the hope in them. They don’t know how to pray with power. Again, false shepherds.

As a church, we have allowed the world’s agenda to govern our lives and attitudes. Few Christians develop a Christian worldview, applying Bible standards to situations in the natural world. Is it any wonder the humanists and secularists have taken over? It is because of our weakness, not their strength. False shepherds, just as in Jesus’ day.

What does the abundant life look like? Think of Brother Lawrence, a lay brother in a Carmelite monastery, a man of limited schooling, born in poverty, suffering from wounds of war and imprisonment, awkward and rough in appearance. He had none of the things most of us count as needful for life. Yet he exhibited a profound wisdom found in few men. He found such joy in practicing the presence of God, he became the envy of all who met and knew him.

The collection of his letters and conversation, “The Practice of the Presence of God,” has become a classic portrait of the abundant life Jesus intended for all of us.

What does this mean for us today? To really believe and practice God’s presence means His presence will be strong in our meetings. We will no longer need gimmicks to attract people. People will hunger for God’s Word and ways. Preachers will preach with Holy Spirit anointing. The church will manifest the presence of God in signs and wonders.

Salvations will come by the millions from every class and age group. The love of God in our midst will overcome oppression, racism, immorality, hatred, anger, fear. Social transformation will take place. The gospel will burst out of the churches into the surrounding communities and into other nations of the world. Laws will change, becoming more righteous and just.

Amen! Let that day come, Lord Jesus!

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Jun 06 2021
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Which Camp Are You In?

The Gospel of John’s account in chapter 9 of Jesus’ healing of the blind man at the temple gate that we examined last month brings us to another side of the matter.

John shows us that the blind man’s healing did not suddenly end all his problems. When Jesus healed him, not everyone rejoiced and praised God for this good thing.

The religious Pharisees became very upset. Although the man had sat at the temple gate for years, they apparently paid no attention to him. They did not take compassion on him. They did nothing to help the man to better his condition. They just left him at the gate to beg and barely survive. They just assumed the man was a sinner who deserved his fate. Jesus’ compassionate act put them in an embarrassing position.

These religious Pharisees were those to whom others traditionally looked for religious advice and counsel. But Jesus demonstrated godly authority, power and compassion they did not possess. He demonstrated that they were really charlatans. With this healing, they must humble themselves and submit to Jesus or resort to reckless means to discredit Jesus. They unwisely chose the latter course.

Jesus’ healing violated their protocols about how and when these things should happen. Also, since they were unable to heal the blind man themselves, they feared that people would look to Jesus rather than to themselves as their authority. None of this met the man’s real needs.

They regarded themselves as a religious elite. To them, Jesus threatened the social order, namely, their own power. Behind their anger lay fear and jealousy because this man, Jesus, from a small town demonstrated God’s power and authority they lacked.

These religious phonies also reacted by attacking the healed man’s character and throwing him out of the temple as an example to others who dared to challenge them. They wanted to intimidate others who might question them. They refused to consider the possibility that Jesus’ power to heal demonstrated His authentic authority from God. Their power over the people meant more to them than a diligent search for truth.

The work of Jesus always winds up dividing people into two camps—those who accept His transforming power and those who rely only upon themselves, even when they use religious terms.

Does not this story of the blind man reflect what has happened to many of you who read this? Like the blind man, you have submitted yourselves to Him, but there are people in your lives who do not rejoice with you in your new-found freedom. They see you as a threat.

Jesus did not leave the man alone in his predicament with the religious leaders. He came to him and encouraged him. The man submitted to Jesus, and Jesus met the man’s need in the face of fierce opposition. He will do the same with each of us who puts our ultimate trust in Him.

We believers in Jesus Christ must ask ourselves: Are we more like Jesus or the Pharisees in our attitudes toward those who suffer for no fault of their own?

Let us who know the power and authority of Jesus Christ in our lives help to make His saving power manifest in all of India and throughout the world.

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Dec 08 2020
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Peace

Jesus Christ, Prince of Peace, came into the world to restore peace with God and peace among human beings. Throughout India and the world, billions of people search for peace. Most people look for peace in the wrong places.

Christians say the only true way to peace is through Jesus Christ. Why do they say this? Such claims to exclusivity are considered politically incorrect both in India and the western world. In India, there are many paths to salvation. Why claim Jesus Christ as the only way?

In John 5, Jesus claims to be the only way to God because God is His Father, and He works His Father’s works. His work is seen especially in bringing new life to those who are spiritually dead. This regenerate life in the average person is the biggest proof of Jesus’ uniqueness and authority over all others.

The new life of Christ is the creative work of God in a human being, making something new where there was nothing before. This is not just a theological idea but living reality. What does this “new life” mean?

I think of a man in my past, known to us in India as Pastor Yesudas. He began life as a poor, sickly, almost-illiterate Dalit, an insecure child with a serious stuttering problem. He lay at death’s door with tuberculosis and other ailments. Then he heard the gospel. He committed his life to Jesus Christ and received prayer for healing.

Immediately, he was healed. He hungered for more of the life of Christ. He thirsted for the Word of God. Because of near-illiteracy, he lacked the educational requirements to enter the Bible school. He was allowed to sit in class, but because of educational deficiencies, he could not understand.

After much prayer and fasting over this obstacle, the Lord gave him a photographic mind to receive the scriptures read to him. Now, he not only understood what instructors told him, but he could also give Bible insights of great wisdom that astounded even people with advanced degrees. God took away his stuttering problem, giving him dynamic gifts of preaching, healing and a prophetic ministry like few others.

Many people followed Christ because Pastor Yesudas exhibited the life of Christ. He pioneered a number of churches in new and unreached places. In all his fruitful ministry, he remained a near-illiterate man.

When I was an infant, Pastor Yesudas already sensed God was calling me for ministry. Before I can remember, he prayed daily prayers over me, preparing me for the ministry I have today. I owe my calling and ministry to the prayers of this man with the new life of God.

The life of God is more than religion or morality. It is the power and peace of God. We cannot force it or fake it. It is the final proof of our faith. It is the reason we say Jesus Christ is the only Way. Who else can duplicate these things?

The new life of Christ has been replicated in men, women and children of every background for two thousand years. One day, this Good News will reach all peoples everywhere.

Let us make sure that we do our part in making sure all have heard of this Prince of Peace who comes with new life. This is the real meaning of Christmas.

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Dec 05 2019
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Made for More

silhouette-of-person-walking-1046896God made us for more than we imagine!

We glimpse this in Psalm 8 where David writes, “…you [God] crown him with glory and majesty! You make him to rule over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet…” This repeats God’s mandate in Genesis 1.

This dominion mandate has never been fulfilled because sin and death entered into the world—death to our physical bodies and also death to our spirits. Our spirits are the part of us designed for fellowship with God and to fulfill His grand design.

Sin destroyed our ability to fellowship with God. We became indifferent to God. We became hostile to God. We underestimated God. We ignored and disbelieved God. We suppressed the truth about God. We did not take God into account. We did not fulfill our mandate, and the whole universe has suffered. We are no longer in harmony with God, our purpose for being, the world around us, our own bodies, or other people.

Sin has taken a terrible toll on our minds. No longer in tune with God and our purpose for being, we are limited only to those things we perceive with our five senses, to our own limited reasoning capacities. A thing may seem right to us, but it leads to death. We may have high ideals and moral standards, and enjoy the arts, but we still fall pitifully short because we no longer have God’s perspective or power.

The Good News is that God has never revoked His dominion mandate. Through Jesus Christ, He entered the world in Bethlehem to set things right through His life, death and resurrection. Through Christ, He regenerates our dead spirits and sends His Holy Spirit. We become part of His heavenly family, for we are told He is not ashamed to call us His brothers and sisters. One day, His dominion mandate will be 100% fulfilled through us who trust Him.

In the meantime, we must renew our minds with these things. Once crippled by the limitations of sin, our minds, through the Holy Spirit, are now capable of perceiving something of what God has designed for us.

George Muller, the great man of prayer and faith, wrote in his autobiography, “I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, or how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished… Now what is the food for the inner man…but the Word of God.”

The Word of God leads us to the promises of God. As we regularly partake of His promises in trust, our minds are renewed. To the regenerate person, renewed by the Holy Spirit, the promises of God provide the impetus to pray more effectively and glorify Him. We begin to walk in the Spirit, live in power and bear fruit.

Every day, more of India’s unreached peoples are learning these vital truths. Let us join together to insure all of India hears this great news!

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Oct 01 2019
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Baptism

Baptism-2019Praise God for His wondrous grace by which He provides everything we need for our salvation. Salvation comes to us by grace through faith alone which is His gift (Romans 4, Ephesians 2).

In spite of these specific declarations of God’s salvation through grace alone, numerous people, both Catholic and Protestant, still believe that we need water baptism for salvation. They insist on this though nowhere in scripture do we find Jesus, Paul or anyone else making such a specific declaration. If baptism were absolutely essential for salvation, why wouldn’t Paul say it outright, leaving no guesswork or need for debate? Since he doesn’t, that should settle the matter.

Think of those saved in the Bible who did not receive baptism—the paralytic man in Matthew 9, the penitent woman in Luke 7, the publican in Luke 18 and the thief on the cross in Luke 23. Nowhere does the Bible mention anything about infant baptism. Biblically recorded water baptism takes place only among people who first choose faith for themselves, and always by immersion.

If baptism does not bring us salvation, why does Jesus command His disciples to baptize at the same time He commands His disciples to preach the gospel to all peoples (Matthew 28:19-20)?

To follow Christ means to change our identity. Baptism publicly declares our identity is now with God’s people and what He did through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Baptism publicly declares we have died to our old life, and we are raised to new life in Christ. We are united with Him.

When Jesus first saves us, He saves us in spirit and soul. But we also consist of a body, and our bodies must work in harmony with our spirits and souls. A visible sign, an action of our bodies, confirms outwardly what we have already done inwardly.

A wedding ring does not in itself bring a man and woman into relationship with one another. Neither does baptism bring a person into relationship with Jesus Christ.

But a wedding ring does signify that a dramatic change has come about in that relationship. A covenant has been made and vows taken between two people that mean new commitments and responsibilities to one another, to future generations.

Baptism should signify a dramatic change in one’s relationship with Christ not just serve as a rite of passage. No longer are we content with passive church attendance, but we publicly identify with the finished work of Christ on our behalf.

With Christ’s finished work as our life foundation, we publicly declare our readiness to bear new responsibilities for Christ. We are ready to take an active concern for those things that move the heart of God. Just as the wedding vows mean new responsibilities, so baptism should become the beginning of new commitment and responsibility for God’s kingdom.

Baptism should signify to the rest of the world not only that we are members of God’s family but that we identify with those eternal things that move the heart of God
our Father.

One of those things that moves the heart of God is fulfillment of the Great Commission that will lead to fulfillment of His kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. As true children of God, we will take outward action to fulfill the Great Commission through our prayers, gifts and time.

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