Fundraising Update 2

  At this point I am about 70% funded. Tomorrow (May 5th) is when I will learn the ticket price for going to Japan. I feel confident that I will be able to go on this trip. One of the books (other than the Bible) that has influenced me to go on a mission trip is the book Radical by David Platt. He challenged you to spend 2% of your time in another context. That is one week. That 2% will effect your thinking and outlook for the other 98% of your time. This trip is not just what I can do for others, but it is also a learning time for me. God often uses the craziest things to teach us his lessons. If you are anything like me, you learn the hard way.

One of the things God often uses to teach me is books. I love to read. I love plots and characters. But sometimes I read a topical book. These books often help me grow the most. Here is an excerpt that I have been thinking about recently.

From Radical

            We have seen the cost of following Jesus. Give up everything you have. Sell your possessions, and give to the poor. Go to places of great need and great danger, where you may lose your life. Give your life for the sake of Christ among the nations. The cost of picking up a cross and following Jesus is steep. It cost you everything you have. But in the end, the reward is sweet. You gain more that you ever had.

            In the words of Jesus, “No one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred time as much in this present age… and in the age to come, eternal life.” (Mark 10:29-30) When you do the math on this, this really is no sacrifice. In the introduction to Jim Elliot’s biography, his wife, Elisabeth, wrote a summary of is life and death that seems most appropriate at this point. She said:

Jim’s aim was to know God. His course, obedience—the only course that could lead to the fulfillment of his aim. His end was what some would call an extraordinary death, although in facing death he had quietly pointed out that many have died because obedience to God.

He and the other men whom he died with were hailed as heroes, “martyrs.” I do not approve. Nor would they have approved.

Is the distinction between living for Christ and dying for Him, after all, so great? Is not the second the logical conclusion of the first? Furthermore, to live for God is to die, “daily,” As the apostle Paul put it. It is to lose everything that we may gain Christ. It is in thus laying down our lives that we find them.

As Elisabeth Elliot points out, not even dying a martyr’s death is classified as extraordinary obedience when you are following a Savior who died on a cross. Suddenly a martyr’s death seems like normal obedience.

            So what happens when radical obedience to Christ becomes the new normal? Are you willing to see? You have a choice. You can cling to short-term treasures that you cannot keep, or you can live for long-term treasures that you cannot lose: people coming to Christ; men, women, and children living because they now have food; unreached tribes receiving the gospel. And the all-consuming satisfaction of knowing and experiencing Christ as the treasures above all others.

            You and I have an average of about seventy or eighty years on this earth. During these years we are bombarded with the temporary. Make money. Get stuff. Be comfortable. Live well. Have fun. In the middle of it all, we get blinded to the eternal. But it’s there. You and I stand on the porch of eternity. Both of us will soon stand before God to give an account for out stewardship of the time, resources, the gifts, and ultimately the gospel he has entrusted to us. When that day comes, I am convinced we will not wish we had given more of ourselves to living the American dream. We will not wish that we had made more money, acquired more stuff, lived more comfortable, taken more vacations, watched more television, pursued greater retirement, or been more successful in the eyes of the world. Instead we will wish we had given more or ourselves to living for the day when every nation, tribe, people, and language will bow around the throne and sing praises of the Savior who delights in radical obedience and the God who deserves eternal worship.

            Are you ready to live for this dream? Let’s not wave any longer.

            Pg. 215-217