Read
Charles T. Studd was a famous sportsman in England, captain of the Cambridge XI cricket team. A century ago he gave away his vast wealth to needy causes and led the “Cambridge Seven” to China. His slogan was, “If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.”
During the first decade of this century, Charles Borden left one of America’s greatest family fortunes to be a missionary in China. He only got as far as Egypt where, still in his twenties, he died of typhoid fever. Before his death he said, “No reserves, no retreats, no regrets!”
A generation ago, Jim Elliot went from Wheaton College to become a missionary to the Aucas in Ecuador. Before he was killed, he wrote, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
“…I [Billy Graham] have chosen Christ not because He takes away my pain but because He gives me strength to cope with that pain and in the long range to realize victory over it. Corrie ten Boom said, ‘The worst can happen but the best remains.’” 1
Reflect
For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:21)
Respond
Service is one of God’s purposes for your life and a heart for service begins when a person falls in love with Christ and is willing to say, “Lord, I will do anything you want me to do. Here I am. Send me.” Have you said this lately? Can you say, “Yes” to what God wants you to do even before you know what it is? “Yes, Lord. Now tell me what to do.” Are you absolutely in love with Jesus? For what specific service did God create you? Consider it this way: When you want to drive a nail, you pick up a hammer. When God wants to ____________________________ (fill in the blank), He calls on you.
Your thoughts?
Remember
You’ll never be happier and you’ll never be safer than right in the middle of God’s will— even if it costs your life.
1Billy Graham, Approaching Hoofbeats: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, (Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1983) p. 94-95.