Week 36:
Take My Life
The more I read the Word of God the more it pierces my heart. It makes me stop and think and meditate. I meditate now more on eternity than I ever have in all my life. Our people are not eternity conscious. Do you think a person who is ready for eternity would miss a prayer meeting? I don't know of anywhere on Earth where there is more freedom than in a prayer meeting where God anoints those who pray and you almost, as it were, rub shoulders with God. Again I say, when Ahab was breathing down the neck of Elijah, and Jezebel was digging a pit for his feet, do you ever think he thought for a moment he'd stand on the Mountain of Transfiguration with Moses and Jesus? Apparently Moses could see through the space in time... he could see and he endured. "He chose to suffer."
Suppose you were a twenty year old or a thirty year old in Bosnia or one of these other countries today. You wouldn't have a home to go home to.
Some of these young men today come into my office and say, "These are wonderful days to be alive". Sure they are - you go from an air conditioned home, to an air conditioned car, to an air conditioned church, where you collect a copious offering and go home to rejoice in the Lord. What about those who get nothing?
Paul gets to a place where he says, "I have nothing, yet I possess all things." Paul goes through all sorts of cleansing. He did not end up in Romans 7 "it is sin that dwelleth in me." He ended up in Galatians 2:20, "Not I, but Christ liveth in me." That is the ultimate in the Christian life. I don't care how many tongues we have or how many miracles we were able to perform. The word of God says again, "Christ liveth in me." The life I now live in this mortal body is Christ controlled. People say that in the Old Testament Christ was with them but not in them. But Peter doesn't say that! Christ was in them. Do you think a man could go and pray and say on behalf of the rotten nation he lived in, "Lord kill me," again, he also says, "Take my life. I don't care. I'm not bothered by living."
I want to be so God possessed. Of course, some say that's fanaticism. People get weary of hearing about all the trouble in Bosnia but they can't wait to hear what is going on with the baseball strike. And I'm talking about men in ministry, I mean preachers. They rush out from church Sunday morning for home and go watch baseball or football. So they are trying to serve two masters. No man can do that; you can only serve one master.
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