Sacrifice

Elisabeth Elliot

Posted on by Kath Walden

Speaking of the 5 missionaries, including her husband, Jim, who were martyred this day in 1956:
Each had made a personal transaction with God, recognising that he belonged to God, first of all by creation, and secondly by redemption through the death of His Son, Jesus Christ. This double claim on his life settled once and for all the question of allegiance. It was not a matter of striving to follow the example of a great Teacher. To conform to the perfect life of Jesus was impossible for a human being. To these men, Jesus Christ was God, and had actually taken upon Himself human form, in order that He might die, and, by His death, provide not only escape from the punishment which their sin merited, but also a new kind of life, eternal both in length and in quality. This meant simply that Christ was to be obeyed, and more than that, that. He would provide the power to obey.

A.W. Tozer

Posted on by Kath Walden

When in danger the state can conscript men to fight for her freedom, but there are no conscripts in the army of the Lord. To bear a cross the Christian must take it up of his own free will. No authority can compel us to feed the hungry or evangelize the lost or pray for revival or sacrifice ourselves for Christ’s sake and the sake of suffering humanity. The ideal Christian is one who knows he is free to do as he will and wills to be a servant. This is the path Christ took; blessed is the man who follows Him.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Posted on by Kath Walden

The cross is laid on every Christian… When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow Him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time – death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at His call. Jesus’ summons to the rich young man was calling him to die, because only the man who is dead to his own will can follow Christ. In fact, every command of Jesus is a call to die, with all our affections and lusts. But we do not want to die, and therefore Jesus Christ and his call are necessarily our death as well as our life.

Author Unknown

Posted on by Kath Walden

When love motivates us to reduce ourselves to nothing, we’ll desire that God be all. God protects those who’ve made love their business, who’ve stopped worrying about themselves. They are amazingly unflappable and unassailable; after all, these unpretentious peacemakers live out the courage and strength of their love. If you haven’t tried this yet, you should risk everything to learn how to love.
(Cloud of Unknowing)

Catherine Booth

Posted on by Kath Walden

Whatever the particular call is, the particular sacrifice God asks you to make, the particular cross He wishes you to embrace, whatever the particular path He wants you to tread, will you rise up, and say in your heart, “Yes, Lord, I accept it; I submit, I yield, I pledge myself to walk in that path, and to follow that Voice, and to trust Thee with the consequences”? Oh! but you say, “I don’t know what He will want next.” No, we none of us know that, but we know we shall be safe in His hands.

Mother Teresa

Posted on by Kath Walden

The “least of my brethren” are the hungry and the lonely, not only for food, but for the Word of God; the thirsty and the ignorant not only for water, but also for knowledge, peace, truth, justice and love; the naked and the unloved, not only for clothes but also for human dignity; the unwanted; the unborn child; the racially discriminated against; the homeless and abandoned, not only for a shelter made of bricks, but for a heart that understands, that covers, that loves; the sick, the dying destitutes, and the captives, not only in body, but also in mind and spirit; all those who have lost all hope and faith in life; the alcoholics and dying addicts and all those who have lost God (for them God was but God is) and who have lost all hope in the power of the Spirit.

Helmut Thielicke

Posted on by Kath Walden

Perhaps the greatest gift we have as Christians, who know that our Lord has won the victory, is that even here and now, not only at the end, we can praise God, simply because we know that there is one victorious, shining theme that runs through all the loneliness and homelessness, all the hunger, thirst and mysteries of this life and that is: Nearer, my God, to thee.

He who knows that at the end is God’s peace – not merely cries for the depths; he can also sing praise from the depths. For he who praises God is not afraid!