“God wouldn’t call me to risk my health, or my family’s health, or our lives, would He?”
When we first surrendered for the work in Malawi, someone with a prominent position in the church took me aside and told me I was unwise and irresponsible for taking my family – a 7 month old baby and a pregnant wife – all the way to Africa where we could die.
Would God really call us to risk our health? Would he call me to risk my family? Would he call us to a place where our very lives would be in danger?
Actually, He already did just that! He said that if we were going to follow Him, we would have to take up a cross. A cross does not bring comfort, a cross brings suffering and death! He said if they persecuted Him, they will persecute us. Paul said that through many tribulations we will enter the kingdom.
Friends, why do we seek to save our lives? All throughout history, men and women of God were willing to give up their lives for the cause of Christ. Until we have the same values, we will remain impotent in this world. We need Christians who do not love their lives. We need young people who choose to lose their lives, in order to gain something more valuable in eternity.
What we see around us is truly an Abnormal Christianity, something not found in the Bible. Normal Christianity is following the example of Jesus. Normal Christianity is following the example of Paul and of the apostles.
If you let the worries about your life and health interfere with serving God – let me blunt with you and say that you are having a watered down version of Christianity.
Becoming a Christian cost us nothing, but following Christ costs us everything.
On behalf of untold billions of souls for whom Christ died, I beg you to consider what your part is in reaching the unreached with the Gospel. I promise you that God has a larger narrative for most of our lives than what most of us are willing to live.
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Also read Quotes from Leonard Ravenhill.