LOVE YOUR LIFE AWAY

The great fact of the Kingdom is you cannot love alone. There has to be a someone; a person who is known. For some, it is an object. A house, a car, a sport. But usually the people it seems, must all resort, To focusing on others. A husband or a wife. A member of the family for whom you’ll give your life. It tends to be the children. The ones they had by birth. For most of us see children as the greatest gift on earth. But not in isolation. You cannot love that way. There has to be a someone to whom you’ll turn and say That you are very special. I’d give my life for you. No matter what you ask of me, indeed that’s what I’ll do. This all sounds very abstract. It seems a bit of fuss. And yet our Lord and Saviour did all of this for us. He told us that He loved us, and then He showed the way; That we should be expecting from other folk today. In fact He went one better. His love can have no end. We’re drawn with everlasting love to Jesus Christ our friend. His love is our Salvation. Without Him we are through. Its love that keeps us keeping on because His love is true. It leads us on to holiness; the Christian’s great desire. That fills our lives with something that His Holiness requires. We cannot be indifferent. We cannot be mundane. It has to be the very best or we would go insane. We have to give Him everything. The things that we control. Our homes, our cars, our furniture, our bodies, minds and soul. We cannot give Him any less. We give our love away; And everything we ever give comes back to us some day. He is no fool who gives away that which He cannot keep: Exchange it for what can’t be lost. The deal seams very cheap. Thus said the late Jim Elliot before he gave his life. He left behind his family; he even left his wife. For he was on a mission to take God’s Holy Word, To those in South America, the ones who’d never heard, God’s message of salvation. He died there at their hands; Be he had loved so very much he took the Lord’s commands And gave them to the “Auca”. It was not done in vain. The ones who went to follow him were able to explain, The Gospel to these people; And as they each believed They gave their lives to Jesus and salvation they received. And so he loved completely His life he laid aside, He loved these savage Indians so much he went and died. Jim Strickland – written Tuesday, 23 August 2011