Category Archives: Thoughts From Scripture

Carnival of Beauty: The Beauty of Sacrifice

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The Carnival of Beauty, sponsored by Sallie at A Gracious Home and hosted this week by Renee at Of Noble Character, has as its theme this week “The Beauty of Sacrifice.”

Sacrifice, in and of itself, doesn’t seem like a beautiful word. It conjures up images of animals, blood, and altars, or it makes us think of something we should give up that we don’t want to. I looked it up on dictionary.com and found a long list of definitions for different parts of speech. One that stood out to me was, “Forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one considered to have a greater value or claim.”

In that definition I see a glimmer of the beauty of sacrifice.

On the one hand I think of the sacrifices God made for us. If you think of the amount of time and trouble we cost Him on an everyday basis (I hope I am not sounding irreverent: I am not meaning to) it seems like He could have created something that would have been far more pleasurable and less work for Himself. Yet He created us and He desires our fellowship. Amazing! And because He does, He sent only begotten sinless Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to lay down His life and take on Himself our sin and the just punishment we deserved so that if we repent of our sin and believe on Him, we can be saved, cleansed, forgiven, and made His own children, with a home waiting for us in heaven and His grace, Presence, and help here and now. We don’t merit that forgiveness and salvation by any kind of sacrifice we make: there’s nothing we could ever do that would be enough to earn it. It’s a free gift based on His sacrifice.

In His example, though, I think the definition doesn’t quite fit in the sense of surrendering something highly valuable for something of more value. We are certainly not of more value than His Son. But He did love us enough to give His greatest treasure for our redemption.

The Lord Jesus, in full agreement and in full submission to His Father, willingly surrendered, sacrificed His life for us.

In light of that, any kind of sacrifice we might make for Him pales in comparison. I’ve known of dear folks who echo David Livingstone’s sentiments:

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 hereafter be revealed in, and for, us. I never made a sacrifice. Of this we ought not to talk, when we remember the great sacrifice which HE made who left His Father’s throne on high to give Himself for us.
(http://www.cooper.edu/humanities/classes/coreclasses/hss3/d_livingstone.html)


I understand what he means. Yet the Bible does honestly speak of sacrifices we are to make once we are His children:

Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:5)

What kind of spiritual sacrifices are we to make?

For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. (Psalm 51:16-17)

Even in Old Testament times, the sacrifices which were a picture of the coming perfect Sacrifice could be an empty ritual if one’s heart was not broken and contrite before God. I think this is the first sacrifice: our pride, our stubborn clinging to our “own” way, our laying aside of anything in our lives that is not pleasing to God. It’s also a continual sacrifice as we walk daily with the Lord, read His Word, grow in Him, and become more aware of how much that desire for our “own” way is ingrained in our thinking.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. (Romans 12:1)

Not just our broken spirit and heart, but even our bodies are to be surrendered to Him. He reminds us that this is only our reasonable service in light of God’s mercies to us.

By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. (Hebrews 13:15)

I’ve wondered why our praise to God would be called a sacrifice: perhaps because we have to get our attention off ourselves and our concerns.

But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. (Hebrews 13:16)

Some years back my husband commented on the honesty of this verse, acknowledging that it does cost us something to do good to others.

But I have all, and abound: I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, wellpleasing to God. (Philippians 4:18)

This and the previous verse indicate that sometimes those spiritual sacrifices manifest themselves in meeting physical needs, and Paul response to the Philippians’ sacrifice shows forth some of the beauty of a sacrifice given and received.

A few years ago my husband took our youngest son out to shop for my birthday. My son was excited about perhaps getting to buy a little something for himself after getting Mom’s present. As they shopped, my son chose the item he wanted to purchase for me. My husband told him that if he got that item, that would take all the money he had. It took my son a few moments to process the realization that if he bought that gift for me, he wouldn’t be able to buy anything for himself. Finally, though a little teary, he decided to go ahead with the purchase. I can’t tell you how that touched my heart to realize that he denied himself to do something special for me.

Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all. (Philippians 2:17)

Paul was willing for his life to be poured out in ministry to others.

And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. (Ephesians 5:2)

Even more than Paul, Christ is our example of walking in love and giving oneself.

What makes a sacrifice seem hard is the struggle to give up what we think is ours: our time, our schedule, our goods, our lives. But as David prayed after the people of Israel offered the things needed for the building of the temple, “But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee” (II Chronicles 29:14). If we remember that anything we have is not our own but was given to us by God in the first place, and if we meditate on His mercies and all He has done for us, it doesn’t seem so hard then to surrender it back to Him. Back to our definition, whatever the value of what we need to sacrifice, it pales in comparison to the worth of the One to whom we are sacrificing.

The beauty of sacrifice is the humble surrender to God of what He freely gave us, in response to His great love and mercy, for use in His service in a life of love and ministry to others, which He regards as wellpleasing, as a “sweetsmelling savour.”

God is the LORD, which hath shewed us light: bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar. (Psalm 118:27)

Amy Carmichael: Victory During Illness

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God hath caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction.
Genesis 41:52b

For the last twenty years of Amy Carmicahel’s life she was an invalid, yet she remained in India as acting head of the Dohnavur Fellowship. What had begun with the rescue of one child from being sold into temple prostitution grew to orphanages and a hospital and a full-fledged compound. In Frank Houghton’s biography of her, Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur, he prefaces this section of her life with the following poem by C. A. Fox, which has been a great blessing to me:

Two glad services are ours,
Both the Master loves to bless.
First we serve with all our powers–
Then with all our feebleness.

Nothing else the soul uplifts,
Save to serve Him night and day,
Serve Him when He gives His gifts–
Serve Him when He takes away.


One day Amy received a shipment of tracts for the ill. As she read them, they just did not do anything for her. As she pondered that, she realized it was because they were written from well people telling sick people how they ought to feel. Over many years she had written notes of encouragement to various ones in the Dohnavur Hospital (named, in the descriptive Indian way, Place of Heavenly Healing), and some of these were compiled in a book titled Rose From Brier. They are rich in their
spiritual encouragement and insight, partly precisely because they were written by one who had shared in the fellowship of sufferings.

In another of Amy’s books, she wrote the following:

This prayer was written for the ill and for the very tired. It is so easy to fail when not feeling fit. As I thought of them, I also remembered those who, thank God, are not ill and yet can be hard-pressed. Sometimes in the midst of the rush of things it seems impossible always to be peaceful, always to be inwardly sweet. Is that not so? Yet that and nothing less is our high calling. So the prayer is really for us all.

Before the winds that blow do cease,
Teach me to dwell within Thy calm;
Before the pain has passed in peace,
Give me, my God, to sing a psalm,
Let me not lose the chance to prove
The fulness of enabling love,
O Love of God, do this for me;
Maintain a constant victory.

Before I leave the desert land
For meadows of immortal flowers,
Lead me where streams at Thy command
Flow by the borders of the hours,
That when the thirsty come, I may
Show them the fountains in the way.
O Love of God, do this for me;
Maintain a constant victory.

Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.
II Corinthian 1:3-5

Amy Carmichael: A Chance to Die

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A little more than a week ago, I started a “series” of answers to prayer from the lives of classic missionary biographies. That series was supposed to run every day for a week or so — and that hasn’t quite happened. 🙂 I have one more anecdote in that category I’d like to share, but in the process of looking back over several missionary stories, I found a few other things that have spoken to my heart over the years that I wanted to share. I’m just going to post those as opportunities arise and as I feel led. Here is the first one:

Amy Carmichael was one of the first missionaries I ever read much about, and her life has had a tremendous impact on me as well as on most who read about her. She would have been appalled at the thought of any attention directed toward her, but a look at her life is reveals what it is to walk closely in love and obedience to God. She was a missionary from Ireland who worked in India from 1895 to 1951 without a furlough.

One of the lessons from her life that has stayed with me over the years (in my mind, at least: it is still far from being worked out in practice as often as it should be) comes from her earliest days in India. In Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur, author Frank L. Houghton records that Amy wrote that one of the group of missionaries was

unfair and curiously dominating in certain ways and words. One day I felt the “I” in me rising hotly, and quite clearly — so clearly that I could show you the place on the floor of the room where I was standing when I heard it — the word came, “See in it a chance to die.” To this day that word is life and release to me, and it has been to many others. See in this which seems to stir up all you most wish were not stirred up — see in it a chance to die to self in every form. Accept it as just that — a chance to die.

Often we think of dying to self in the big, martyr-like ways. Yet it is in those everyday situations where, as Amy aptly put it, the “I” in us “rises hotly” that we need to deny self .

Missionary Anecdotes: Isn’t “No” an Answer?

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Just a tiny little child
Three years old,

And a mother with a heart

All of gold.

Often did that mother say,

Jesus hears us when we pray,

For He’s never far away
And He always answers.

 

Now, that tiny little child

Had brown eyes,

And she wanted blue instead

Like blue skies.

For her mother’s eyes were blue

Like forget-me-nots. She knew

All her mother said was true,

Jesus always answered.

 

So she prayed for two blue eyes,

Said “Good night,”

Went to sleep in deep content

And delight.

Woke up early, climbed a chair

By a mirror. Where, O where

Could the blue eyes be? Not there;

Jesus hadn’t answered.

 

Hadn’t answered her at all;

Never more

Could she pray; her eyes were brown

As before.

Did a little soft wind blow?

Came a whisper soft and low,

“Jesus answered. He said, No;

Isn’t No an answer?”

 

The above poem, written by Amy Carmichael, was based on on incident that actually did occur in her life when she was three. It turned out to be in the providence of God for her to have brown eyes. She became a missionary to India in the late 1890s. At first her ministry was primarily evangelistic. But along the way she became aware that some parents in India sold their daughters to the temple, where they were used for immoral purposes. God led one such child to her, and through a series of events and a sense of the Lord’s leading, Amy took the child in. Then more stories of other girls (and later, boys) surfaced and more opportunities to rescue and provide homes for these children arose. Amy had to struggle with this, because the Lord had seemed to be blessing her evangelistic work. Was it right to turn from that ministry to give herself to housing and raising children? She concluded that that was indeed God’s will for her life. The ministry grew exponentially and eventually became a whole compound, with housing for children of all ages, the workers who took care of them, and even their own hospital.

 

As Amy went “undercover” to find details of these children, she would stain her arms with coffee and wear Indian dress so that she could pass as an Indian woman and move freely in Indian society where she never could have as an Irish missionary. This she could not have done with blue eyes — her eyes would have given her away immediately. Neither she nor her mother could have ever known, all those years ago, the Lord’s purpose for her brown eyes, but the lesson of faith stayed with her all her life.

 

(Recommended biographies of Amy Carmichael: Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur by Frank L. Houghton; A Chance to Die by Elisabeth Elliot; and With Daring Faith (a children’s book) by Rebecca H. Davis.)

Answers to prayer from classic missionary biogaphies: an urgent need for clothes

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I mentioned in a previous post that I wanted to start a short series telling about answers to prayer from classic missionary biographies in hopes that it would encourage us in our faith and in our praying.

I wanted to start off with something close to home. Missionaries don’t spend all their time on the front lines fighting spiritual battles or out on the streets witnessing to everyone they meet. They have to deal with the same mundane affairs of life that we all do, and often those mundane affairs are more complicated than they are in America. That was especially true in previous centuries.

The Goforths were missionaries to China in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Mrs. Goforth has written Goforth of China, a biography of her husband; How I Know God Answers Prayer (I was delighted to find what appears to be all or most of the text of this book here); and Climbing, which includes many anecdotes she was requested to share as well as some of her own personal struggles. The following comes from Climbing.

The Goforths had just escaped from the Boxer Rebellion in China to Shanghai. Until a ship left that they could find passage on, they had to stay in an empty house with little furniture. In the ten days they were there, her husband and son Paul bought some ready-made clothes, and she was able to have one dress made.

But the other three children! They were in rags given by the Chinese on the journey. How could I, without materials, without a machine, get an outfit made for even one, and the ocean voyage just ahead! Alone with the baby one morning I cast myself down by the little one and cried again and again to the Lord to send someone to help me. My distress was great. Help I must have, but I knew no one to whom I could turn. Then suddenly, while I was praying, the doorbell rang. On opening the door I found two women outside. They introduced themselves and told of having seen our names among those of the refugees. They were in charge of a Chinese girls’ school, but on account of the Boxer troubles, all the girls had been sent home. They then said, “We have nothing to do and thought you may need help.” Scarcely able to speak, I told them rapidly my story; how I was on my knees pleading for help when they rang the bell. A few moments followed in which we stood clasping hands, weeping, just too full for speech. Then they went away to get materials, for there was no time to lose.

In a very short time, they returned with a pile of materials of from three- to five- yard lengths. I cut out and gave directions for a number of garments. The women took all away and, with the help of some friends, made practically everything needed except for the baby, who, in the rush of getting others provided for, was forgotten! The day we sailed, I gathered a quantity of material together, planning to make the most necessary things for him on board ship. Then came the most beautiful proof of God’s overshadowing care.

We had been passing through the Inland Sea and were nearing Yokohama. I had been trying my utmost to get some necessary things ready for baby W., but my hands trembled so I could scarcely hold the needle. I struggled on, realizing my strength was going, but kept sewing til I could no longer see the needle. Rising, I folded the work, and, going down to the cabin, put it quietly, numbly into the trunk, saying, “Lord, I have done all I can. I can do no more. As you provided for the others, do so now for baby.” I then went on deck and lay down on a long chair exhausted. How long I lay there I do not know, but suddenly someone touched me and said, “There’s a large bundle come off the lighter for you: it is in your cabin.” Dazed at first, I could not take it in. Then it flashed into my mind, “It’s the answer.”

In the cabin, I found a letter attached to the bundle from Mrs. O. E., of the China Inland Mission, whose husband was at that time risking his life in China, seeking to bring out to safety women of the mission who were in peril. The letter stated that her little son, the same age as my baby, had died some months before and she felt it laid upon her to send me, for my child, his outfit. I opened the bundle to find not only a most beautiful, complete outfit for my little one, but also many things I needed for myself and the other children. It was indeed one of the Lord’s exceedingly abundant answers. Is it any wonder that those words written so long ago by the psalmist have always had a deep thrill of response in my heart?

I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live. – Psalm 116:1-2.

What God Does With Our Sins

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I was just looking through Rosalind Goforth’s book, Climbing, for another post I am working on, and came across this study she did. I thought it might be a blessing to some.

She was often oppressed and burdened with a sense of sin, even though she knew she was forgiven, even after she was a missionary to China. One evening she searched the Scripture, determined to find out what the Bible said God did with out sin. This is the result of her study (wording and emphases are hers):

1. He lays them on His Son — Jesus Christ. Isaiah 53:6

2. Christ takes them away. John 1:29

3. They are removed an immeasurable distance — as far as the east is from the west. Psalm 103:12

4. When sought for are not found. Jeremiah 50:20

5. The Lord forgives them. I John 1:9, Ephesians 1:7, Psalm 103:3

6. He cleanses them ALL away by the blood of His Son. I John 1:7, Revelation 1:5

7. He cleanses them as white as snow or wool. Isaiah 1:18, Psalm 51:7

8. He abundantly pardons them. Isaiah 55:7

9. He tramples them underfoot. Micah 7:19 (ASV: KJV says “subdue)
10. He remembers them no more. Hebrews 10:17, Ezekiel 33:16

11. He casts them behind His back. Isaiah 38:17

12. He casts them into the depths of the sea. Micah 7:19

13. He will not impute us with sins. Romans 4:8

14. He covers them. Romans 4:7

15. He blots them out. Isaiah 43:25

16. He blots them out as a thick cloud. Isaiah 44:22

17. He blots out even the proof against us, NAILING IT TO HIS SON’S CROSS. Colossians 2:14

Missionary Biographies

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When I was in college, I heard an older woman speak about the impact that reading missionary biographies had on her life. Then the church that my husband and I joined after we were married (which, incidentally, this lady also belonged to) had a Ladies Missionary Prayer Group which included, in its monthly meeting, a “book report” of sorts about a classic missionary biography.

Next to the Bible and being under good preaching regularly, I believe that reading missionary biographies has had the greatest impact in my own Christian growth. I think most missionaries would not want to be put on a pedestal or thought of as some type of super-Christian. In fact, the ones I benefit from the most are the ones whose biographies reveal they are “of like passions as we are.” (I think some older biographies tended to venerate their subject so much that they seem almost sinless. It must be hard for a biographer to want to put their subject in the best light and to want to avoid sounded gossipy by including negative things. Yet sometimes a “warts and all” type of biography tends to go too far the other way. I’m sure it is hard to strike the right balance.) Yet I’ve learned much from the examples of those who have gone before, whose lives have been shining testimonies to God’s grace. I listed some of my favorites in a previous post.

We learn history for a number of reasons, among them: to better understand our current times, to appreciate our heritage, to avoid repeating mistakes. There are heroes in our national history who inspire us to a love of country and duty and courage. There are heroes of our spiritual heritage who inspire us in love and dedication to God and to greater faith in remembering that the God they served and loved and Who provided for and used them is the very same God we love and serve today and Who will provide for us and use us. Though times and culture change, human nature at its core doesn’t change much, and God never changes.

An idea came to mind a few days ago to share some of the things I’ve read about these “heroes of the faith” in hopes that they would in turn encourage you. I thought for the next week or so I would post a series about answers to prayer. As I’ve thought back through some of the other things I’ve learned and been blessed by through reading missionary biographies, I’ve come across other anecdotes I’d love to share; but I decided for now it would be best to stick with the original idea.

The following poem is recorded in the front of Rosalind Goforth’s, book, Climbing, and it illustrates my viewpoint in reading missionary biographies. The author is unknown.

Call Back!

If you have gone a little way ahead of me, call back-
It will cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track;
And if, perchance, Faith’s light is dim, because the oil is low,
Your call will guide my lagging course as wearily I go.

Call back, and tell me that He went with you into the storm;
Call back, and say He kept you when forest’s roots were torn;
That when the heavens thunder and the earthquake shook the hill.
He bore you up and held where the very air was still.

O friend, call back, and tell me for I cannot see your face;
They say it glows with triumph, and your feet bound in the race;
But there are mists between us and my spirit eyes are dim,
And I cannot see the glory, though I long for word of Him.

But if you’ll say He heard you when your prayer was but a cry,
And if you’ll say He saw you through the night’s sin-darkened sky-
If you have gone a little way ahead, O friend, call back-
It will cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track.

Limitations

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Elisabeth Elliot’s writings just bless my socks off. I know she would not want to be glorified for herself: the blessing that comes through her is a result of the Lord’s working in her life and teaching her for these many years. Because she’s walked the road ahead of us she can encourage us not just by theory but by experience that God is faithful and His path of obedience the best path.

I receive a daily e-mail devotional from from Back to the Bible taken from some of her writings. A couple of days ago the topic was limitations, and she wrote

Yesterday as I was reading my brother Tom’s book, The Achievement of C.S. Lewis, I was admiring again the scope of his knowledge, his ability to comprehend another’s genius, and his wonderful command of English. By contrast my own limitations seemed severe indeed. They are of many kinds–analytical, critical, articulatory, not to mention educational. But my limitations, placing me in a different category from Tom Howard’s or anyone else’s, become, in the sovereignty of God, gifts. For it is with the equipment that I have been given that I am to glorify God. It is this job, not that one, that He gave me.

For some, the limitations are not intellectual but physical. The same truth applies. Within the context of their suffering, with whatever strength they have, be it ever so small, they are to glorify God. The apostle Paul actually claimed that he “gloried” in infirmities, because it was there that the power of Christ was made known to him.

If we regard each limitation which we are conscious of today as a gift–that is, as one of the terms of our particular service to the Master–we won’t complain or pity or excuse ourselves. We will rather offer up those gifts as a sacrifice, with thanksgiving.

I have thought often in regard to dealing with the after-effects of transverse myelitis, “Lord, I could serve you so much better without this.” But it’s as if He were saying, “No, this is what I am using to shape your service for Me.” Most people who have gone through any type of trial or affliction in life would say that, although they didn’t welcome the trial itself, they were drawn closer to the Lord, and the lessons learned were invaluable.

Even limitations that are not from some type of trial but rather from the seasons of life shape what our ministry is supposed to be. I remember as a mother of young children often having this desire to do something — I wasn’t sure quite what — and I was discouraged that I was too busy trying to keep my head above water in everyday life to try to figure it out. The Lord had to keep reminding me that that was His ministry, my service for Him, at that season. I needed to focus, to relax and enjoy it. And now, getting older (that sounds so much better than aging! 🙂 I’m still in the middle of middle age) I can already foresee that there will be different limitations in the coming seasons of life that will shape who I am and what I do for Him.

Our limitations are God’s tools. As Elisabeth said, “For it is with the equipment that I have been given that I am to glorify God. It is this job, not that one, that He gave me,” and they “become, in the sovereignty of God, gifts.”

Deep Joy

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OUR Christianity is apt to be of a very “dutiful” kind. We mean to do our duty, we attend church and go to our communions. But our hearts are full of the difficulties, the hardships, the obstacles which the situation presents, and we go on our way sadly, downhearted and despondent. We need to learn that true Christianity is inseparable from deep joy; and the secret of that joy lies in a continual looking away from all else–away from sin and its ways, and from the manifold hindrances to the good we would do–up to God, His love, His purpose, His will. In proportion as we do look up to Him we shall rejoice, and in proportion as we rejoice in the Lord will our religion have tone and power and attractiveness.
–CHARLES GORE

From the September 8 reading of Joy and Strength, compiled by  Mary Wilder Tileston.

By Grace I’m Saved

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This song has been on my heart throughout the day. I had only heard this version on Stephen Eagar’s CD Breath of Life, but in searching for the lyrics, I found a slightly different (and fuller) version on Cyberhymnal. The music on Eager’s CD is from a traditional Gaelic melody which was also used for the song Morning Has Broken.

By Grace I’m Saved

by Christ­ian L. Scheidt

By grace I’m saved, grace free and boundless:
My soul, believe, and doubt it not.
Why should we stagger at God’s promise?
Hath Scripture ever falsehood taught?

By grace I’m saved, not by my own merit:
Our works, our conduct have no worth.
God in His love sent our Redeemer.
Christ Jesus came to sinful earth.

By grace I’m saved, O, wonderful promise
When thou art by thy sins oppressed.
When Satan plagues thy troubled conscience,
And when thy heart is seeking rest.
All of man’s reason never will comprehend
All that God’s grace alone doth send.