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Dear friends and coworkers in Christ,
Greetings! We at AFC have been praying for your growth and journey to be unleashed beyond CMC 2014. In order to better assist you, we will gradually email you 9 follow-up articles that were specially written based on the CMC Affirmations, which are:
- The Centrality of God’s Glory and Lordship in Our Lives
- The Need for Personal Repentance and Sanctification
- The Power of the Gospel and Urgency of Evangelization
- Disciple and Disciple-making
- The Importance of Building God’s Local Churches
- Bringing Up the Next Generation of Young Leaders
- Culture and Society
- Partnership and Unity of the Church toward Missions
- Global and Local Perspectives
Our hope is to simply inspire and encourage you to be more intentional about living out the Great Commission in your daily life! May the messages and lessons from CMC continue to remind you of the urgency to obey our Lord's command to make disciples of all nations and to love our neighbors by giving our lives for the common good of the world so that we may not be ashamed when He returns.
The first article by Dr. Tom Tarrants talks about first things first: The Centrality of God's Glory and Lordship in our lives.
Since many churches only used one email address for the entire group when registering for CMC, our email list is incomplete. We kindly request you forward this article to those who participated in CMC 2014 from your church/network, or you can reply to this email with their contact information. We will include them for the future articles. If for some reason, you do not wish to receive this series of articles, you may “unsubscribe” at any time.
So we are ambassadors with you,
CMC 2014 Planning Team
* Interested be part of the Next Step follow-up training? Pls contact jhwang@afcinc.org |
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| | “God, in the three Persons of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, is our only worthy object of worship. He is the Lord of the universe, our precious savior, the head of the church, who will return to judge the whole world and bring forth the new heavens and new Earth. Therefore, we dedicate ourselves, first and foremost, to God before any human authorities, traditions and worldly pursuits, in a consistent manner that is worthy of the gospel of Christ (Phil 1:27).”
Reflect
One day soon, Jesus Christ will return to earth in power and great glory as King of Kings and Lord of Lords to judge the living and the dead. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord, as each person comes before his judgment seat to give an account of their lives. Those who have rejected Christ’s offer of forgiveness will receive the consequences of their choice - everlasting punishment. Those who have believed the gospel and trusted Christ as Lord and Savior will enter into the fullness of eternal life. But first, they will give an account of how they have lived since coming to salvation in Christ. This accounting is not related to salvation but to rewards for faithful living and service to their Lord. The Apostle Paul took this very seriously and said, “...we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one will receive what is due for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Cor. 5:10). If the great Apostle of grace took this accounting seriously, so should we.
In light of this approaching day, how should we live to please the Lord? Paul gives us a two-part answer to this fundamental question of life. And his answer guides us in living a gospel-centered, grace-filled life that glorifies God. In part one, he says “I appeal to you therefore brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Ro. 12:1). This means to make a total surrender of ourselves to God and is God’s will for every believer in Christ. All that we are and all that we have are to be given wholly to God for his use for as long as we live. This is a shocking idea to most people, and many in the American church have never responded to it. But Paul says it is our spiritual worship. The Greek word for “spiritual” can also translated as “reasonable.” Some translations use one, some use the other. But that is not a problem, because both senses are equally applicable. It is both reasonable and spiritual for finite, sinful creatures like us to give ourselves wholly to the God who made us and redeemed us. For “The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth,” He is “the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God.” “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory!” He dwells in unapproachable light and has infinite wisdom and power. Yet he is also our Father in heaven who loves us so much that he gave his only Son to save us. This is the basis of Paul’s appeal for surrender, for he introduces it with the phrase, “by the mercies of God.” By this phrase in Romans 12.1 he means all that he has just written in Romans 1 to 11, which speaks of our sin and corruption, of God’s amazing grace in sending his Son to be the propitiation for our sins, and of the gift of the Holy Spirit to empower us for obedient living. William Barclay sums it up well, “Christianity does not think of a man finally submitting to the power of God; it thinks of him as finally surrendering to the love of God. It is not that man’s will is crushed, but that man’s heart is broken” (New Testament Words, p23).
The second part of Paul’s answer is “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good, acceptable and perfect” (Ro. 12:1-2). Because we live in a fallen world that offers many attractions to entice us to return to our former sins or to explore new ones, we must be vigilant. Day-by-day, we must reaffirm our surrender to God, seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit and walk in obedience. We must not allow the world to “squeeze us into its mold.” Rather, we are to allow ourselves to be transformed by the renewing of our minds so we can understand how God wants us to respond to the many challenging situations that confront us in life. Only thus can we choose what is good, acceptable and perfect in God’s sight and bring glory to him.
The renewal of our minds especially requires that we immerse ourselves in God’s word and invite the Holy Spirit to teach and transform us. We should particularly focus on the teachings, works and person of Jesus Christ in the gospels, expanding elsewhere from there. This involves daily reading of the Bible, memorizing and meditating on key passages, studying the Bible and sitting under regular teaching and preaching in a Christ-centered, Bible-believing church. As we feed on the word of God, asking the Holy Spirit to illuminate our understanding, and as we obey what we learn, we will experience increasing transformation into the likeness of Christ. Our “manner of life will be worthy of the gospel of Christ,” and because we are God’s “workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared in advance that we should walk in them,” we shall not only glorify God and Christ, but shall also be prepared to meet Christ without shame at the judgment of all things. Yes, it may require sacrifice, but as C.T. Studd said, “If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him.”
Respond
1. Memorize and prayerfully meditate on Romans 12.:1-2 for seven days.
2. Set aside a time for extended prayer (and perhaps fasting) for the purpose of making a full surrender of yourself to God.
3. If you are not yet ready to make a wholehearted commitment to God, ask God to make you willing to be willing to surrender all, and read one or both of the following books: The Cost of Commitment, John White, (InterVarsity Press) Absolute Surrender, Andrew Murray (Various publishers).
About the author
Tom Tarrants has lived in the Washington, D.C. area since 1978 and served as President of the C.S. Lewis Institute from 1998 to April 2010. He is a published author, regularly consults with churches and organizations seeking to develop discipleship programs to strengthen the local church. Tom holds a M.Div, as well as a D.Min Degree in Christian Spirituality. He is an ordained minister in the Evangelical Church Alliance. Tom has been invited to join AFC as minister-at-large, to develop discipleship programs that are uniquely for the Chinese churches. |
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