I’m not very far into the book yet, but it is very interesting. I love the story of how God introduced him to this mission. It is one thing to support an organization like World Vision (and that is a wonderful thing to do), but when you actually go out there, and meet the kids personally, and see the lives they lead, it changes your world and your view of the world. I wish everyone could experience that.

Are we given the option of turning away from the world’s problems? Many people would argue they don’t have time or resources to deal with the problems of other people because they are trying to survive their own problems. But that kind of thinking just creates a myopic, selfish society. Jesus’ mission was to bring hope, freedom and healing to the broken, hurting people of the world. As His representatives, we have the same mission and mandate.

Does God permit us to turn away? Of course He gives us a free choice to help or turn away, but He expects us to respond to needs around us and globally with whatever means He has entrusted to us. If we do not have money to share, we have a voice with which to renounce evil and speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves. Most of us have food, clothes, and shelter which could be shared with others instead of being hoarded for ourselves.

Proverbs 24:11-12 says, “Rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to death; don’t stand back and let them die. Don’t try to avoid responsibility by saying you didn’t know about it. For God knows all hearts and He sees you. He keeps watch over your soul, and He knows you knew! And He will judge all people according to what they have done.”

How do we make our faith public? By establishing relationships with people, getting involved in the messiness of their lives, taking time to develop friendships, disregarding cultural, religious, and financial differences in order to value others for their uniqueness, and sharing stories of our lives that tell how God’s love won our hearts and healed our sin and brokenness. By being real instead of religious, and by extending the mercy of God to others in the midst of their struggle.

My book is being shipped so I haven’t read it yet, but from my perspective the hole in our gospel is that we preach a love that we don’t really believe in or live out (which makes us pretenders and hypocrites), and we have distorted the good news of hope and redemption with the bad news that God is perpetually mad at us and wants to make our lives miserable unless we submit to the rules and regulations which have been made by human beings who have made God in their own image.

The question I keep asking myself is what is it in me that finds it easier to keep rules than build relationships? How can I say I love God but fail so much in loving my brother/sister well?

Question #1- What does God expect of us?

It is a simple question, and the answer is also simple. He wants us to surrender all of ourselves and lives to Him. Is that easy?? Absolutely not! I think it’s probably impossible. So we surrender, and then we fail, so we must surrender once more. This is called the Christian life. But this life is fleshed out differently for each person. When I surrender to God and when you surrender to God, it will look very different. But the heart should be the same, because it’s God’s heart living through each of us.

As for the more specific questions he asked, they’ll wait until I either take a nap or get something to eat, because all of the synapses don’t seem to be firing right now.

You have a wonderful Saturday with the family, and I’ll pray for tonight’s show.