Almost Speechless at Urbana '12

This is Gene again. I've just been, like, the warm corpse on the operating table shocked back to life by the electric steam-iron things. I listened to David Platt speak about our commitment to Christ - do we even know who He really is anymore? I felt the Holy Spirit's finger pointing at me and there was very little I could say.

The world is at Urbana

He was speaking from Luke chapter 9 v. 51-62 - the three people whom Jesus called to follow him - they accepted, but on conditions. Jesus seems to reply to them ruthlessly - no, you can't bury your father. No, you can't go and say goodbye to your family. No looking back. This makes us uncomfortable and we want to explain it, see, what he really meant was...

David actually began by walking up to the microphone and saying, "Jesus Christ is..." and listing several minutes' worth of Jesus's titles and names and descriptions to remind us of the awesome Lord with whom we deal.

We follow the living, eternal Word of God, who brought everything into existence! The one Redeemer who gave up his life for love of us poor rebels! And on and on he went, piling high the glories of Jesus and the boundless, endless grace with which he has saved us. And have we reduced Jesus to a little saviour who begs us to 'accept him into your heart'?

Anyway, the message was: Jesus is worthy of all our trust, all our plans and dreams, and all of our affections. That's how he can call us to follow him without reservations and conditions. Because why are we following him? What is the goal? Is it not to join Him in calling more people to worship Him? Is it not the highest and noblest cause, worthy of all our effort and daring and ability, to go to the lost world of at least four and a half billion people? And, David challenged us, if all 16,000 of us followed Jesus with everything we have, wouldn't that get the job done?

I remember now. This is how I started out, years ago, to place my life at His disposal and set my face towards mission. Now I must go and ask Him - have I compromised and made excuses?

David Platt's book, 'Radical', is on sale at the Urbana bookstore for just $5.  I think I might get one - if there are any left tomorrow morning.

Worshipping God in Chinese, Spanish, French and... oh yes, English too.

I almost forgot to mention the other components of the evening - each one deserves a headline to itself - the worship team - the rap/dance team - Chai Ling, Chinese freedom fighter turned to Christ - see Urbana Live - see videos of the sessions