When I go through the gospel message in my mind and review the journey that Jesus took to lay down His life, my life seems so small. I cannot say that this is my mantra for how I live.
Reading the story of Esther helps me. In fact, it is the story that we gave to our daughter on her sixteenth birthday with the promise that her life was to live the fullest for she was a young lady, needed by God, for such a time as this.
And they told Mordecai what Esther had said. Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, “Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.”[c] Mordecai then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him. – Esther 4:12-17 ESV
It passed me by in my readings until today that Jesus used similar words too.
Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. – John 12:25-27 ESV
I am challenged as a disciple of Jesus to follow Him. I need to be able to come to a place in that walk to lay down my own life and work. Even as I write these words, inside of me I hear other words that expect me to shrink from sacrifice and death. I love that the Holy Spirit is coming alongside me and encouraging me to understand that the true principle of life is of the Spirit, and only in the sacrifice of my desires regarding my physical and emotional life is my spiritual life realised.
Father, thank you for the power of Your Word to guide me to what real life is all about. I am called to lay down my life for You. I see it in the disciples, I see it in the Old Testament, I see it in Hebrews chapter eleven. I see it in Jesus. Fill me with Your Holy Spirit that I may walk each day doing just that. Amen
Erwin (evanlaar1922)
Sixty-six books in a year 