Tag Archives: Jim Elliott

Grace to relinquish

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Jesus said to them, ” I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.

(Matt 19.28&29)

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade – kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.

(1 Pet.1:3-7)

We make promises to one another in marriage. We promise that we will conduct ourselves in particular ways, regardless of the situations in which we find ourselves, and also regardless of how we happen to feel on any given day. A marriage can only survive if the partners trust that – so far as is humanly possible – those promises will be kept. We have to believe that our spouse means to love us at our least lovable; to care for us in our weakness; to be loyal and discreet about our failures; to be for us even when we are against ourselves. Without that trust – in their words becoming motivations, attitudes and deeds – we cannot fully give ourselves to the relationship, but always hold back in self-defence. My trustworthiness is the gift I give to my husband, so that he knows my word is true, and can rest in it.

As followers of Jesus, we have also made promises before God – to enthrone Christ as Lord of our lives, to hold ourselves in readiness to serve him, to hold all his gifts to us on an open hand and continually offer them up to him to be used as he pleases for his purposes. We do not bargain with God when we become believers – we are not earning favour or salvation by our own love and service – but the magnitude of Christ’s saving work calls forth a response of whole-hearted dedication of our whole selves to him, and in our fervour we sing that he is all we need or desire in the world…. And then he offers us the opportunity to prove that our words were more than empty air, but represented the deepest truth about ourselves, and so often we hesitate.

What does that hesitation say about our trust in God? I think it says that we have a very low estimation of our Father’s abilities or desire to do what he promised. The bible is full of people who doubted God and tried to hold onto things, to manipulate situations in order to protect themselves and get their own preferred escape from trouble. How we struggle to believe that the dark valleys are necessary, are truly God’s path for us. How we rage against the loss of those things dearest to us, as if God were simply mean and liked to make us sad.

Friends, I am facing the end of a chapter in my life which has brought wonderful joys – good things for which I have thanked God over and over again. And now He asks me to relinquish these good things, to trust him for an unknown future, and to do this in such a way that He will be glorified in my life and witness. As I thought about this, I have been reminded of the words of saints of old. I have been rebuked and challenged by them to seek the grace of relinquishment for the sake of Christ, to follow cheerfully where He calls me. May God enable me to obey with readiness, thanksgiving and a spirit of trusting gladness, as I lay this place, this community and all the joy it represents on the altar as my sacrifice of praise.

Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were an offering far too small. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life my all.

(Isaac Watts, 1674-1748)

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.

(Jim Elliott  1927-1956)

If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him.

(CT Studd 1860-1931)

Buried in the cause…

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How can I repay the Lord for all his goodness to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord, I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people.

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints..

I will sacrifice a thank-offering to you and call on the name of the Lord. I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people..

(Psalm 116. 12-15,17&18) 

I recently heard this phrase used by a preacher who was referring to the Scottish athlete and missionary, Eric Liddell, a man who surrendered himself to the call of Christ to make disciples of all nations, and followed his parents to the mission field in China – where he would die in a Japanese interment camp at a relatively young age.

Liddell, and many others over the centuries, have been literally “buried” for the sake of the gospel, as they died in the lands to which they went – African deserts and Ecuadorean jungles – sometimes of disease, and other times deliberately martyred by those who opposed them. Some, like Jim Elliott and his colleagues, had their stories broadcast to the world, and God used their dying as a witness to the living, of how powerfully the gospel inspires and what an amazing gift it is we have to share. But so many others have died invisibly, silently, and only God knows their story. Does that make their lives and deaths of any less value?

The psalmist would certainly not say so! His words in Psalm 116 are such a tender declaration of God’s care and delight in every individual child, they always touch me deeply. But I think they also reassure me that my life is precious in God’s sight! So  many of the figures in the bible narrative are people who lived ‘small ‘lives, in a limited geographical area, without political or military power, and who were barely noticed while they lived, let alone died. And yet, time and again, our attention is drawn to them as the story of their lives is woven into God’s great plan for redemption. Consider Rahab, the woman of Jericho, whose courage protected the spies and who would be absorbed into the people of Israel after the destruction of her city. Or the young girl – whose name we do not even know – who sent her master Naaman to seek out the prophet Elisha, and receive healing. There is Mordecai, in exile and under continual threat from powerful opponents, who yet was used by God to protect and deliver all the Jews in captivity.

As our family prepare to leave the city for a new ministry, these examples of ‘small ‘ lives, faithfully lived in obedience to God are an encouragement to me.

It does not matter whether the world considers that we are burying ourselves in a small place and a small work. What is small about sharing the transforming power of Christ with the people for whom he died?! It is no matter to us whether we are called to 5,000 or 2,000; our worth does not depend on the number of people in our parish, but on the love which God has for us, his beloved children. We are called to obey: to pray for lives to be touched by the gospel: to make disciples, through teaching and walking alongside them: to walk closely in fellowship with God ourselves, so that our own lives might be a story by which the gospel is told. All of these are valid whether anyone is watching or not; and our worth does not even depend upon the fruit of our labours, but simply on God’s love for us.

Yes, it will be hard if we are called to work without seeing what God is doing, to sow the seed and trust that someone else will tend the crop and reap the harvest in God’s good time. But it is our calling simply to fulfill our vows, to obey, and to find our contentment in knowing that – however faltering the effort – our heart’s desire has been to say ‘ Yes Lord, I will.’ Our inspiration is the cross and our reward is his constant, loving presence.

Upon that cross of Jesus, mine eye at times can see

The very dying form of One who suffered there for me;

And from my smitten heart, with tears, two wonders I confess – 

The wonder of his glorious love, and my own worthlessness.

I take, O cross, thy shadow for my abiding place;

I ask no other sunshine than the sunshine of thy face:

Content to let the world go by, to know no gain nor loss – 

My sinful self my only shame, my glory all, the cross.

(from “Beneath the cross of Jesus”, E.C Clephane 1830-69)

Dying to live..

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Then he said to them all:

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.

What good is it for a man to gain the whole world and yet lose or forfeit his very self?

(Luke 9. 24&25)

Some people would have us believe that the christian life should be a happy, smooth and fulfilling one, and that if we do not have that experience, then we are somehow failing to grasp our inheritance as God’s beloved children.

Where does Jesus call us to such a life? Not here, not in these words, which are recorded in all four gospels, indicating their centrality to our understanding of his teaching. Jesus calls us to die for him, no more, no less. For many, it is a call to physical death – whether by martyrdom, or by being exposed to unusual risks by virtue of the work we do in his name. For all of us, it is a call to die to ourselves, to the ways of thinking and acting which put our needs, welfare and personal fulfillment first.

Am I the only christian who needs regularly to be reminded that my Lord calls me to this radical discipleship? To have it drummed into my heart and thinking again and again that my own happiness is not the goal of my life, in spite of the bewitching messages with which contemporary culture tries to persuade me. When I get my eyes fixed back onto this vision of the life to which I am called, for which I was saved by my Lord, then it is like finally seeing past a smokescreen, to a clear sky and a straight road. But oh, how hard it can be to look up, to shake myself clear of the smoke and see properly!

Jesus does not give me options on obedience, I am not in a position to qualify the extent to which I will do as God commands according to my circumstances and feelings! If I once allow my feelings to become the driving force behind my willingness to obey, then I will become utterly bogged down in self-obsessed inaction. God has given me a will to act, a mind to understand, and has shown me what to do. How I feel must follow, not dictate, my obedience to those commands.

Did it not cost Jesus more than we can begin to imagine to obey God’s will in his life on earth? He wept and toiled, and embraced suffering and death because He knew that this was God’s will for him. What am I saying when I protest against the cost of obedience in my life, that I am not willing to suffer in turn? That my immediate comfort and temporary self-fulfilment are more precious than eternal life and union with Christ? That his love for me is not worth very much if it must be paid out of my own ease?

I have been reminded again of the words penned by martyred missionary Jim Elliott, who wrote :-“he is no fool, who gives what he cannot keep, to gain that which he cannot lose!”

God forgive me that I protest so bitterly against the small crosses which he asks me to bear, against the small sacrifices which he asks me to make in his name. Should I not rather rejoice that I may suffer through obedience? My Lord sees the pain I experience, and commends me as I seek to obey in spite of it. That same pain causes me to lean ever harder on His arm, to listen closer for his loving voice, to sit ever more lightly to this world and hope more gladly for the next. Is this not reason for giving thanks in my struggles? God give me courage to obey, understanding to see what I must do, and fuller knowledge of his love that my desire for him might continue to grow.

All to Jesus I surrender; all to Him I freely give;

I will ever love and trust Him, in His presence daily live.

I surrender all, I surrender all; all to Thee my blessed Saviour, 

I surrender all

(Judson W. Van De Venter 1896)