Would You Do It?
Title: WOULD YOU DO IT?
In the last year of his life, an elderly man in his seventies worked as a dish washer in the Life Line Mission, on the San Francisco waterfront.
When he died, he bequeathed $150,000 to the mission which shelters destitute men and $128,000 to Messiah College in Pennsylvania.
Announcements of the unusual bequest came on Christmas Eve, when a check for $110,000 arrived on the Messiah College campus, with information that $18,000 would come later.
Dr. Ray Hostetler, president of the college knew the identity of the benefactor but respected his wish to remain anonymous.
President Hostetler said, “He apparently worked for years and saved almost every nickel he earned to invest in the stock market. The money will be used to build a kitchen in the New Eisenhower Student Center on the Grantham campus in honor of the memory of an old man who spent much time in working in the kitchen of a mission—washing dishes.”
Jim Elliot, martyr: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.”
The following ad occurred in a London newspaper: “Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.” The ad was signed by Sir Ernest Shackleton, Antarctic explorer. Thousands responded instantly to the call. They were ready to sacrifice all for the elation of adventure and uncertain honor. Should God’s children do less.
The “hundredfold” compensation (recall 13:8) for everything abandoned, particularly family and home, envisages an eternal family and dwelling place unspeakably more wonderful than anything this earth has to offer
All losses of this kind will be wonderfully compensated for in the eschatological blessing to be enjoyed by disciples of Jesus. But the greatest blessing of all will be the inheritance of eternal life
“People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of the great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own reward of healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter?
“Away with such a word, such a view, and such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering or danger now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause and cause the spirit to waver and sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall hereafter be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice. Of this we ought not to talk when we remember the great sacrifice which He made who left His Father’s throne on high to give Himself for us.”
—David Livingstone
When James Calvert went out to cannibal Fiji with the message of the Gospel, the captain of the ship in which he traveled sought to dissuade him. “You will risk your life and all those with you if you go among such savages,” he said. Calvert’s magnificent reply was, “We died before we came here.” And yet he would have been the last to talk about a sacrifice; it was not a life of sacrifice, but of real pleasure.