DALLAS, TEXAS (ANS) -- Gospel for Asia President and Founder K.P. Yohannan opened the ministry’s Renewing Your Passion conference Friday afternoon at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas by encouraging Christians to become less self-centered and more Christ-centered.

K.P. Yohannan speaking at the Renewing Your Passion Conference

“It is about Him, not about us,” Yohannan said. “He came to deliver us from our own self-centeredness.”

The Renewing Your Passion conference is a gathering of Christians from around the world who support the work of Gospel for Asia’s 16,500 native missionaries in 11 South Asian countries.

Speaking to more than 1000 people at the conference, Yohannan challenged believers to turn their backs on the shallow Christian teachings that pervade the Western culture.

“The Lord is calling us to come up, walk away and see things from His perspective and respond to it and live the way He wants you to live!” Yohannan explained.

He cited Moses and Abraham as biblical examples of those who left all the luxuries and promises of the world to follow after God. He also told a compelling story of a GFA native missionary who struggled with his calling, yet persevered to take the love of Christ to the people of Northeast India.

He also noted that Jesus learned about obedience through suffering.

“For more than 30 years, on a daily basis, He embraced the cross,” Yohannan reminded the crowd.

Yohannan admitted that focusing on Christ is not easy.

“The enticement we have from the world is constantly calling us to walk away from Him and put our focus on something else.”

The key to maintaining Christ’s perspective is to spend time looking into Christ’s face—by studying the Scriptures.

“The passion that motivates me is not what others see in me, or what I can get out of it,” Yohannan noted. “My one concern is for His name and for His glory.

The Renewing Your Passion Conference continues through Sunday at the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas, Texas. Other speakers scheduled to speak include GFA mission leaders from Nepal, Myanmar (Burma), Sri Lanka, India, and the U.S. and the U.K...

Details about the conference, including specific speakers, are available online at www.gfa.org/ryp.