The price is certainly high for people who don’t know Christ and who live in a world where Christians shrink back from self-denying faith and settle into self-indulging faith. While Christians choose to spend their lives fulfilling the American dream instead of giving their lives to proclaiming the kingdom of God, literally billions in need of the Gospel remain in the dark
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the cost of neglecting true faith in Christ in favor of worldly desires, highlighting the spiritual need in the world.
David Platt's quote addresses the significant spiritual consequences faced by individuals who do not know Christ, particularly emphasizing that many Christians may choose a life of comfort and self-indulgence rather than fully dedicating themselves to their faith and sharing the Gospel. This shrinkage of faith and commitment leads to billions of people living in spiritual darkness, underscoring the urgent call for Christian action and the proclamation of God's kingdom to those in need.
In practice
During a church sermon to encourage believers to reevaluate their priorities in life.
So what is the difference between someone who willfully indulges in sexual pleasures while ignoring the Bible on moral purity and someone who willfully indulges in the selfish pursuit of more and more material possessions while ignoring the Bible on caring for the poor? The difference is that one involves a social taboo in the church and the other involves the social norm in the church.
What if the very reason we have breath is because we have been saved for a global mission? And what if anything less than passionate involvement in global mission is actually selling God short by frustrating the very purpose for which he created us?
A high view of God’s sovereignty fuels death-defying devotion to global missions. Maybe another way to put it, people, and more specifically pastors, who believe that God’s sovereign over all things will lead Christians to die for the sake of all peoples.
[...]there is no injustice in God. The injustice lies in Christians who possess the gospel and refuse to give their lives to making it known among those who haven't heard.
God involves us in his missions not because He needs us, but because He loves us. And in His mercy He has invited us to be involved in His sovereign design for the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth.
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.
My father has always prayed that his words would reflect God's standard of truth as the basis to claim, 'I have given them Your word' (John 17:14). In this book, I believe you will see that he has faithfully spoken God's Word that quenches the thirst of those seeking to draw from the wellsprings of Life. It is highly meaningful to see these statements now collected in one volume.
With God in charge, I believe everything will work out for the best in the end.
Receiving the Eucharist means adoring Him whom we receive. Only in this way do we become one with Him, and are given, as it were, a foretaste of the beauty of the heavenly liturgy. The act of adoration outside Mass prolongs and intensifies all that takes place during the liturgical celebration itself.
My goal is GOD HIMSELF. Not joy, not peace, not even blessing but HIMSELF...my GOD.
Saving faith is the faith of God's elect; the special gift of God to them, wrought in them by his Spirit.
Prayer crowns God with the honor and glory due to His name, and God crowns prayer with assurance and comfort. The most praying souls are the most assured souls.
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