God has blessed us!

527 God has blessed usThis letter is my last monthly letter as a GCI employee as I retire this month. As I reflect on my tenure as president of our faith community, many blessings that God has bestowed upon us come to mind. One of these blessings has to do with our name - Grace Communion International. I think it beautifully describes our fundamental shift as a community. By the grace of God, we have become an international grace-based communion, participating in the fellowship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I have never doubted that our Triune God has led us to great blessings in and through this wonderful change. My dear members, friends and collaborators of GCI/WKG, thank you for your loyalty on this journey. Your lives are living proof of our change.

Another blessing I can think of is the one many of our longtime members can report about. For many years we have often prayed in our services for God to reveal more of His truth to us. God has answered this prayer - in a dramatic way! He opened our hearts and minds to understand the great depth of his love for all mankind. He showed us that he is always with us and that by his grace our eternal future is secure.

Many had told me that they had not heard sermons on the subject of grace in our churches for years. I thank God that from 1995 we started to overcome this deficit. Unfortunately, some members reacted negatively to our new emphasis on God's grace, asking, "What's all this Jesus stuff about?" Our response then (as now) is this: "We preach the good news of him who made us, who came for us, who died for us and rose again, and who saved us!"

According to the Bible, Jesus Christ, our risen Lord, is now in heaven as our High Priest, awaiting his return in glory. As promised, he is preparing a place for us. "Do not be afraid of your heart! Believe in God and believe in me! In my father's house there are many mansions. If it were not so, would I have said to you, 'I go to prepare the place for you?' And when I go to prepare the place for you, I will come again and take you with me, so that you also may be where I am. And where I go, ye know the way” (John 14,1-4). This place is the gift of eternal life with God, a gift made possible by all that Jesus did and will do. Through the Holy Spirit the nature of that gift was revealed to Paul: “But we speak of the wisdom of God hidden in mystery, which God predestined before time for our glory, which none of the rulers of this world knew; for if they had known them, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But we speak as it is written (Isaiah 64,3): »What no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human heart has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.« But God revealed it to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God" (1. Corinthians 2,7-10). I thank God for revealing to us the secret of our redemption in Jesus - a redemption that is secured through birth, life, death, resurrection, ascension and the promised return of our Lord. All of this is by grace - the grace of God given to us in and through Jesus, through the Holy Spirit.

Although my employment with the GCI will end shortly, I remain connected to our community. I will continue to serve on the GCI boards of the US and UK and on the board of the Grace Communion Seminar (GCS), and I will preach in my house church. Pastor Bermie Dizon asked me if I could give a sermon every month. I joked with him that all of these tasks didn't sound like retirement. As we know, our service is not an ordinary job - it is a calling, a way of life. As long as God gives me strength, I will not stop serving others in the name of our Lord.

As I look back over the past few decades, in addition to wonderful memories from GCI, I also have many blessings related to my family. Tammy and I are blessed to have seen our two children grow, graduate from college, find good jobs, and be happily married. Our celebration of these milestones is so overwhelming because we didn't expect to reach them. As many of you know, our fellowship used to teach that there would be no time for such things - Jesus would return soon and we would be taken to a "place of safety" in the Middle East before his second coming. Fortunately, God had other plans, although there is one place of safety prepared for all of us - it is His everlasting kingdom.

When I began serving as president of our denomination in 1995, my focus was to remind people that Jesus Christ is supreme in all things: “He is the head of the body, which is the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, to be first in everything" (Colossians 1,18). Even though I am now retiring as GCI President after more than 23 years, my focus is still and will continue to be. By the grace of God I will not stop pointing people to Jesus! He lives, and because he lives we live too.

Carried by love,

Joseph Tkach
CEO
GRACE COMMUNION INTERNATIONAL