I stepped off the plane into the searing heat of Abu Dhabi in 2019, my few possessions in two suitcases. It had been three years since my first conversation with the pastor and his wife about joining them in the UAE, but my journey had actually begun decades prior.
The first time I read John Piper’s Desiring God - now many years back - God stirred something deep in me. He opened my eyes to see that from Genesis to Revelation, His passion and purpose are to reveal His glory among all the peoples of the world. Jesus died and rose again to ransom “people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation (Revelation 5.9).
What astonished me most was that God chooses to spread his glory throughout the world through us (Psalm 96.3). As Christ’s ambassadors, he makes his appeal through his people. The Great Commission in Matthew 28 is not a suggestion but a call to take the message of Jesus to all nations, make disciples, and teach them to obey all that he has commanded. His mission is ours.
And it is just as urgent today. There are billions of people who have never met a Christian and live nowhere near a gospel-centered church. There are unreached people in difficult and dangerous parts of the world that have never seen a Bible.
So, whether by praying, sending, or going, God calls you to join His global mission. There is nothing that compares to pouring out our lives for the advancement of the gospel in our city and the world. There is nothing that can fill us with more meaning and joy than joining God’s global mission. J. Campbell White summarises it well:
“Nothing can wholly satisfy the life of Christ within his followers except the adoption of Christ’s purpose toward the world he came to redeem. Fame, pleasure, and riches are but husks and ashes in contrast with the boundless and abiding joy of working with God for the fulfilment of his eternal plans. The men who are putting everything into Christ’s undertaking are getting out of life its sweetest and most priceless rewards.”
Understanding these realities turned my world upside down. God set me on a path to pursue global missions, leading me first to that sweltering airport in Abu Dhabi and now here in London. And he calls you too. Don’t settle for husks and ashes when there is boundless and abiding joy in joining God’s global mission to reach the nations.