Perspectives

Part of required training for all new SIM missionaries is the Perspectives in Global Missions course. I had been putting it off until I actually went active. Now that I'm taking it, I'm wishing everyone would.

The lecture last night, "The Story of His Glory," indicted those churches and Bible studies that treat the Bible as a collection of rules and moral stories. It's not that at all, but one great story of God whose glory pales all else from being considered significant, who reflects it in love among the Trinity and in love has determined to sweep mankind up in it. I love how the speaker said that any religious teaching with the punchline "We should be better" will always come up short; the all-sufficient punchline is "Jesus IS better!" So much better than all our strivings. In the midst of my own struggles with vanity (my most haunting sin), this worthlessness of our own efforts to be better, and the Worth of God's glory, reminded me painfully where my obsession belongs.

Convicting as it was, the lecture was also incredibly affirming because it has been on TEN3's hearts for years that people need the whole story of Redemption, not the piecemeal that well-meaning Christians often offer. To hear it from someone else was a deep joy, and made me long all the more for the whole world to hear this story, and see "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." (2 Cor 4:6).