Do we want a clear snapshot of where our first priority really lies?
We only need to look at our first response to adversity that we experience.
Dead men do not flinch or flee when assaulted. Men filled with peace do not panic when the earth quakes.
Confident men are not startled when a thousand fall at their side and ten thousand at their right hand.
When our first response is to look into the face of Jesus - we can rest assured our first priority is pleasing Him!
Only men who have been crucified with Christ can walk in this way consistently.
When our first response is
"that hurt me",
"that will be hard for me"
"that does not help me"
- our first priority is clearly revealed.
What Paul said is still true today. There are far too few Timothys and far too many whose first priority is ME!
Our first priority is also clearly seen in the difference between
murmuring and giving thanks.
Murmuring is always done in the
spirit of self-concern.
Thanksgiving is always done in the
spirit of Christ's concern.
~Am
Title: We Carry Death and Life
Author: Elisabeth Elliot
When Jesus lived on earth, He lived in an ordinary man's body, carrying in that body both life and death. His thirty-three years of life were lived that He might die and through death forever destroy the power of death.
He doesn't live here anymore.
We do.
We who believe are his Body, assigned to carry in our bodies the death He died. Paul said it (2 Cor 4:10 NEB). Insofar as we are willing to die, to 'cross out the self,' we carry the death Jesus died. But that isn't all! We carry also the life Jesus lived--the life that brings life to all, that will never end, that mysteriously is at work in the world because we who love Him are in the world.
O Life Eternal, purify this vessel of my body, that it may purely bear the death and life of Jesus for the life of the world.
Title: We Carry Death and Life
Author: Elisabeth Elliot
When Jesus lived on earth, He lived in an ordinary man's body, carrying in that body both life and death. His thirty-three years of life were lived that He might die and through death forever destroy the power of death.
He doesn't live here anymore.
We do.
We who believe are his Body, assigned to carry in our bodies the death He died. Paul said it (2 Cor 4:10 NEB). Insofar as we are willing to die, to 'cross out the self,' we carry the death Jesus died. But that isn't all! We carry also the life Jesus lived--the life that brings life to all, that will never end, that mysteriously is at work in the world because we who love Him are in the world.
O Life Eternal, purify this vessel of my body, that it may purely bear the death and life of Jesus for the life of the world.
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