Tag Archives: Classic

Christ’s Heart Cry

Christ’s Heart Cry - KP Yohannan - Gospel for Asia

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Missionary conference season. These are extended periods of special church meetings, lasting about 13 weeks each spring and fall. During this time, missions-minded churches carry on an old tradition that began centuries ago.

As I have made the rounds of these conferences each year, certain truths have become evident. One of the most devastating is the fact that the concept of missions has been so cheapened that many Christians now equate it with fund-raising. It has been reduced to just another appeal for money, similar to the annual budget campaign or the building fund drive.

If and when missions is reduced to a dollars-and-cents decision—merely another option for our giving—we prove that we have lost sight of the Savior. The test of our true affection is not how much we give, but how we live. Missions is not something we do, but something we are.

Jesus has made clear the mission mandate for each one of us who claims to follow Him. He said that He lived to do the will of His Father; the fields of lost souls were white unto harvest; and He was sending us into those fields just as the Father had sent Him (John 4:34–38).

That means “missions” is simply an extension of His life, working through your life, to reach this generation with the love of God for a lost humanity. God is not asking us to give money to missions, but to make missions the central passion of our lives!

The Church, as the corporate expression of the Body of Christ, exists only to fulfill His will. And what is His will? He is “. . . not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). Christ meant His Church to be primarily a missionary organization—or better yet, a missionary organism.

The Body of Christ, His Church, is the living presence of a God whose heart is pounding with a passion for lost and dying souls. We must therefore be fellowshipping and worshiping with one thing in mind: reaching lost men and women wherever they are. We are to be a people willing to exchange anything and everything we have for the pearl of great price—the kingdom of God.

Is the Christ we worship and follow today the same Christ of the Gospels? Jesus was always pressing on to preach the Gospel in the next village. His heart’s cry and prayer was for the dead and dying, for the lost, sick and undone. And the heart of every true disciple who follows in the steps of Jesus will be the same. We must be willing, as He was, to let everything go for the sake of lost souls—to give our lives to recapture just one lost inch of territory from darkness and hell.

Excerpt from Chapter 2 of The Road to Reality (ISBN 9781595891136) © 2012 by KP Yohannan, the president and founder of Gospel for Asia.

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Missing: The Other Side of Grace

Missing: The Other Side of Grace - KP Yohannan - Gospel for Asia

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We lost it. Somewhere along our journey from a dead religion of laws and guilt, we modern Christians have misplaced the other side of grace. It was undoubtedly left beside the road with the best of motives. I’m sure that most of those who abandoned reality sincerely wanted to display the immeasurable love of God to a lost and needy world.

But we have failed to reveal the wonderful grace of Jesus we sing about with obedience in our everyday lives. Instead, we have produced an “old dishwater” kind of religion—that insipid, lukewarm faith that Jesus said He would spew out of His mouth!

All those uncomfortable scripture verses about taking up the cross—discipline, sacrifice and suffering—somehow, they just seem to get in the way of our modern-day “convenience store” Christianity. We’ve been taught to serve up a watered-down gospel for so long that the real Gospel has become an embarrassment.

However, half a truth is no truth at all. Obedience must always be a vital part of our response to His love and grace. Faith without works is dead. It is time for us to find our balance again—to restore authentic Christianity before it’s too late. Distorted, perverted gospels always self-destruct.

My prayer for the reader of this book is that God will use it to help you take your first steps. The bridges to reality in our spiritual pilgrimage may seem a bit unfamiliar. The road is strange to us. The disciplines of spiritual reality are “lost arts” to most modern Christians. But they have been tried, tested and proven by millions before you.

They are your only way out of the fantasy and illusion of so much that seeks to counterfeit Christianity today. May I challenge you to come along and begin a journey on the road to reality? Won’t you venture out with us and journey into the heart of Jesus?

Introduction to The Road to Reality (ISBN 9781595891136) © 2012 by KP Yohannan, the president and founder of Gospel for Asia.

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Our Sacrifice and God’s Grace

Road to Reality - KP Yohannan Books

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In the four Gospels, Jesus talks about forsaking all, giving up everything, not laying up treasures on earth and being willing to walk away from even your own life. First Corinthians 13:3 says, “And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.” Unless the motivation behind the sacrifices we make is love—unselfish and genuinely motivated by God and His grace—our sacrifice profits nothing.

The teachings laid out in books such as True Discipleship1 need to be balanced by those presented in books such as Grace Awakening.2 The church at Ephesus made great sacrifices, worked hard and endured difficult times. But the Lord said to them, “Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent” (Revelation 2:4–5). He said this simply because they had lost the reason for all the sacrifice and work; they had lost their first love—Jesus.

One of the marks of people who serve God with great sacrifice, but without the inner reality of grace and love, is that they criticize and condemn others, putting them down and finding fault. They look at others’ houses and think something is wrong with them for living in such wealth or squalor. They look at their clothes. They look at their kids. They compare and complain and murmur, despising people who may not even have the so-called “deeper life,” or revelations and gifts of the Holy Spirit that they have.

The older son in Luke 15 was much like this. While the younger brother was squandering the father’s wealth with wild living, he was laboring in the field as a full-time worker, sweating away. He was not wasting his father’s money. But he was full of jealousy, anger and bitterness. He had a condemning and unloving spirit. He imagined that his younger brother had done all sorts of wicked sins, such as living with prostitutes, all of which the younger brother may have actually never done. He accused his father. I can imagine him saying, “How can you claim that you are my father and that you love me? I’ve been with you all these years, and you haven’t ever given me a party. Yet my wicked brother returns, and look what you do for him.”

This attitude is the fruit of legalism and Phariseeism. It is sacrifice combined with a hard, unloving heart, and it is no good. That is why it is so important to keep a balance between living a life of sacrifice and extending grace and love to all.

I will not change the message I gave you in The Road to Reality3 about sacrificing comforts and giving up worldly possessions for God’s eternal work. I will not compromise, because I keep telling myself that 100 years from now, earthly possessions aren’t going to matter. But I regret those days when I spoke that message without grace.

One particular time comes to mind. I was invited to a home in the Midwestern United States to speak to a group of medical doctors about missions. This house was like the Taj Mahal or some great palace. I sat there fuming, angry and upset at the wealth I saw. I said to myself, “These peoples lives are all a show. Why can’t they sell all this and give the money to world missions?” I could hardly wait for the chance to speak. When my time came to speak, I said nothing about the fancy house. But what I did say was so harsh, unkind and judgmental. My attitude was so unlike Christ.

God in His mercy helped me to grow up and understand His heart. Then I learned there are millionaires who love God and serve Him with more commitment than many full-time Christian workers I know.

In Philippians 4:11–12 Paul writes, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want” (NIV). We must learn to live with this attitude. Simply put, Paul is saying, “If you put me in a five-star hotel, I am very happy. Bring all the best food, the caviar. And if you put me in a no-star hotel, no problem. I am content and happy there, too.”

If you are called by the Lord to be a person of sacrifice, if you are given the grace to give things up, I can tell you, it is wonderful. I could not have given up the things I held on to if it were not for the grace and the love of God. As the Lord is my witness, I found such joy and love in giving them up. I never felt sadness and sorrow in surrendering these things. Instead I got such joy—joy that nothing in the world could give me. It was God’s grace.

We cannot impose His calling for us on others or assume that others are wrong or less mature because they do things differently. It is the Lord’s work in us, not our own doing, that makes us willing and happy to surrender these things.

Notes:

1 McDonald, True Discipleship.
2 Charles Swindoll, Grace Awakening (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1990).
3 Yohannan, K.P., The Road to Reality.

The Road to Reality © 2003 by K.P. Yohannan, the president and founder of Gospel for Asia. It was written with the intention of encouraging and edifying the Body of Christ. To learn more about Gospel for Asia or to receive additional free resources, visit Gospel for Asia’s website.