5 Understandable Words for Today

“How great is the love…”  I John 3:1 (NIV)

In what way was God’s love lavished on “us, that we should be called the children of God”? The Gibraltar of Christianity is the cross. Every new Believer can trace his/her new life back to the cross and Christ’s sacrificial death - paying the penalty for every Believer’s sin. The thought of Christ on the cross with His outstretched arms provides a poignant picture of the extreme measures God took in bringing us into right relationship with Himself. These five understandable words echo another five words found in the gospel that bears the exiled disciple’s name: “God so loved the world…” (John 3:16)

God’s love is so great that He did not spare His only Son in providing the way of reconciliation to mankind. It took a perfect sacrifice… found in the only perfect life this world has ever known, Jesus Christ. When one embraces the cross, one embraces the Christ of the cross, and the cross which every Christian must be ready to bear as a follower of Christ. (Read Luke 9:23)

In 1893, Canadians Walter Gowans and Rowland Bingham, and American Thomas Kent dreamt of reaching sixty million sub-Saharan Africans with the message of Christ. Established mission agencies of that day had all but given up in reaching that area of the world, citing the great challenges to be faced by those who would dare to go. Gowans and Kent succumbed to Malaria in 1894, and Bingham returned to Canada – only to return the next year, catching Malaria a second time. Unable to return to Africa for a third trip, Bingham sent out a willing team of volunteers in 1902, and the first African base for Sudan Interior Missions was established five hundred miles inland at Patigi. The work was referred to as, ‘The White Man’s Graveyard’ because of the high rate of mortality by these selfless missionaries, who would send their worldly possessions to Africa ahead of themselves in a coffin – knowing they would likely return home having completed their life work. Most of the good-byes before boarding ship were the last their loved one’s would ever have with the courageous missionaries.

(from www.milesinmissions.wordpress.com)

Jesus provided a description of those who would give their life in advancing His Kingdom:

“Only those who give away their lives for My sake and for the sake of the Good News will ever know what it means to really live.” (Mark 8:35)

Christians do not live with a death wish. Steve Green’s, “Embrace the Cross”, provides clarity to one’s willingness to make the sacrifice, when called upon to do so:

“How great is the love…”  I John 3:1 (NIV)
In what way was God’s love lavished on “us, that we should be called the children of God”? The Gibraltar of Christianity is the cross. Every new Believer can trace his/her new life back to the cross and Christ’s sacrificial death - paying the penalty for every Believer’s sin. The thought of Christ on the cross with His outstretched arms provides a poignant picture of the extreme measures God took in bringing us into right relationship with Himself. These five understandable words echo another five words found in the gospel that bears the exiled disciple’s name: “God so loved the world…” (John 3:16) God’s love is so great that He did not spare His only Son in providing the way of reconciliation to mankind. It took a perfect sacrifice… found in the only perfect life this world has ever known, Jesus Christ.

When one embraces the cross, one embraces the Christ of the cross, and the cross which every Christian must be ready to bear as a follower of Christ. (Read Luke 9:23)  In 1893, Canadians Walter Gowans and Rowland Bingham, and American Thomas Kent dreamt of reaching sixty million sub-Saharan Africans with the message of Christ. Established mission agencies of that day had all but given up in reaching that area of the world, citing the great challenges to be faced by those who would dare to go. Gowans and Kent succumbed to Malaria in 1894, and Bingham returned to Canada – only to return the next year, catching Malaria a second time. Unable to return to Africa for a third trip, Bingham sent out a willing team of volunteers in 1902, and the first African base for Sudan Interior Missions was established five hundred miles inland at Patigi. The work was referred to as, ‘The White Man’s Graveyard’ because of the high rate of mortality by these selfless missionaries, who would send their worldly possessions to Africa ahead of themselves in a coffin – knowing they would likely return home having completed their life work. Most of the good-byes before boarding ship were the last their loved one’s would ever have with the courageous missionaries. 
(from www.milesinmissions.wordpress.com) 
 

Jesus provided a description of those who would give their life in advancing His Kingdom:
“Only those who give away their lives for My sake and for the sake of the Good News will ever know what it means to really live.” (Mark 8:35)
Christians do not live with a death wish. The song, “Embrace the Cross”,  recorded by Steve Green, provides clarity to one’s willingness to make the sacrifice, when called upon to do so:

Embrace the cross where Jesus suffered, though it will cost all you claim as yours.
Your sacrifice will seem small beside the treasure;
Eternity can’t measure what Jesus holds in store.

Embrace the love the cross requires, cling to The One Whose heart knew ev’ry pain;
Receive from Jesus fountains of compassion, only He can fashion
Your heart to move as His.

O, wondrous cross, our desires rest in you.
Lord, Jesus, make us bolder to face with courage the shame and disgrace
You bore upon Your shoulder.

Embrace the life that comes from dying; 
come trace the steps the Savior walked for you.
An empty tomb concludes Golgotha’s sorrow; 
endure, then, ‘till tomorrow Your cross of suffering.

Embrace the cross.

(Words and music by John G. Elliott. Copyright 1989 LCS Songs (a div. of Lorenz Creative Services)/Charlie Monk Music/Pamela Kay Music. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission.)

So, then, the question must be re-examined for us today: “How great is the love?”  Jesus posed the challenge to His own disciples when He stated, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13) Love is not passive. In fact, Love’s boldest statement is made in the quietest sacred moment of one’s final breath taken while in service to Heaven’s King. The hope of the world was displayed in the death of Christ on the cross. The hope of heaven is displayed in the lives of those given in service to Christ to reach the darkest places on earth with God’s love… and that’s the greatness of love in action.
Who is packing their coffins in this generation?

John 3:30

steve