Our duty and our privilege

‎"It is our duty and our privilege to exhaust our lives for Jesus. We are not to be living specimens of men in fine preservation, but living sacrifices, whose lot is to be consumed; we are to spend and to be spent, not to lay ourselves up in lavender, and nurse our flesh."
- C.H. Spurgeon, The Minister’s Fainting Fits, Lectures to My Students, Lecture XI, 1856.

"I never made a sacrifice"

"For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice"

-David Livingstone

Deny yourself and take up your cross

^{Mark 8:34-38}
Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels."

Do we really understand what it means to follow Jesus and deny ourselves? To be Dead to ourselves? I don't understand how anyone could read this and think they didn't have to give EVERYTHING up to follow Christ. I think we should all pray and ask what is holding us back, and ask for help to give it up.

But more so, I'm coming to see, if it isn't helping you grow, it's not worth holding on to. It's hard enough to follow Christ as is, why waste your time with things that aren't helping you grow? Maybe when Paul said all things are permissible but not beneficial (1 Corinthians 10:23), He was calling us to rid ourselves of all things that aren't beneficial. not just what hinders us, but what doesn't help. Why waste time with it?

I urge you to pray about all this. I will be. and feel free to let me know what you think about it all.

Romans 12:1
"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship."

Matthew 13:44-46
"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.
"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it."

Laying Down Your Life.

Jesus said "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:12-13)

Most people see this as a command to be willing to die for others.
is it? sure. But I think its so much more.

We all know, that we are to be living sacrifices to G-d (see Romans 12) But we are also to be completely self sacrificial in every relationship we have. Laying down our lives.... our needs, our cares, our wants... to be there for others. In every relationship, the obvious ones, marriage and parenthood, and the less obvious ones, our friends, distant relatives and the strangers we encounter everyday.

We seemed to be so focused on getting others to serve us, we never think to serve others.
We are to be like Jesus. He commands us to love as He loved.

I urge you to start thinking about others more than yourself.
We live in a very selfish world... break the cycle and love. Start thinking about what you can do for others, and stop thinking about what you "need" to do for yourself. If you follow G-d, He will take care of you... do you no longer have to care about yourself. Be like Christ... Get rid of your selfish desires, start living G-d's will. Sacrificing, first and foremost to Him and second to His people.

Phillippians 2:1-11

¹If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, ²then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. ³Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. ⁴Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

⁵Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
⁶Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
⁷but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
⁸And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
⁹Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.