We engage with this world with a self-focused perspective – we just can't help it.

We will never join Jesus in what he is doing if all we do is lament and gawk at how bad the world is. E. Stanley Jones, a missionary to India, rightly observed the early Christians who were oppressed and persecuted did not say in dismay, "Look at what the world has come to." Rather, the early Christians said in great hope, "Look at what has come to the world!" Jones said that the early Christians saw not only the ruin but the resources for the reconstruction of that ruin. They saw that not merely did sin did abound, but that grace did abound much more.