He Has Laid Down the Gold of His Heart

I wonder if people feel reserved about spending time with those who have given their very all for the sake of the gospel going out to the ends of the earth.  It always seems to me that gatherings around missionary couples/singles/families should be a time of special fellowship.  Each time we’ve had someone in our home we have been blessed infinitely more than we blessed them with hospitality, for the Spirit flows freely in those who’ve offered up the ultimate sacrifice to Him.

Our children and I will never forget the Kenyan who got up from the breakfast table to dance in our living room to He Reigns – we Americans couldn’t quite get the groove.  He trains up hundreds in their young culture to go out and proclaim Christ, to be leaders, to strive for purity.  He hid on a rooftop in town for several  days in order to escape with his life while his town was burned and pillaged and many men murdered.

It’s the song of the redeemed
Rising from the African plain
It’s the song of the forgiven
Drowning out the Amazon rain
The song of Asian believers
Filled with God’s holy fire
It’s every tribe, every tongue, every nation
A love song born of a grateful choir

It’s all God’s children singing
Glory, glory, hallelujah
He reigns, He reigns...
Let it rise about the four winds

Caught up in the heavenly sound
Let praises echo from the towers of cathedrals
To the faithful gathered underground
Of all the songs sung from the dawn of creation
Some were meant to persist
Of all the bells rung from a thousand steeples
None rings truer than this

And all the powers of darkness
Tremble at what they’ve just heard
‘Cause all the powers of darkness
Can’t drown out a single word

When all God’s children sing out
Glory, glory, hallelujah
He reigns, He reigns...

 --Newsboys

Last week we had the privilege of hearing some current stories about more of such people; Samson, who has several university degrees, but travels to remote villages over dozens of uncomfortable hours by bus, boat, motorcycle, to set up literacy training facilities so that lowest caste India families can learn to read the Bible.  Old and young alike, large numbers in the towns participate; fifty percent generally become true believers and are discipled.  The least of these my brothers…

And there is the man who spent thirteen years in prison: “Even in prison, I knew that God was with me and I knew what He had done for me on the cross.  It is greater than what I had been through in prison.  Than you to my brothers and sisters in America and many other countries for your faithful prayers.  [are they?!] I know that I am still alive today because of your faithful prayer.  I am now sharing my testimony because of your powerful prayers.  Please pray for my country, Laos.  Pray that everyone accepts Jesus Christ, because I know that nothing is worthy in this life except becoming a Christian and following Jesus Christ.  I know how hard life is, but I want to encourage believers in America to be strong in their faith…”   He hasn’t been in our home, but Christ went two thousand years ago to prepare a home for him in the same eternal city we will inhabit, just some short hours from now.

Let us not think for a moment that our prayers, feeling so obscure for sufferers around the world, do not matter, or can be foregone because we can’t quite get to it.  Remembering them when we sit down to thank the Lord for a full plate of food puts our abundance in perspective.  And next time there is an opportunity to be with one of these, or with one who is telling about them, run to the chance.  It changes the lives of our children; and as adults, crystalizes a clearer perspective.

“What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?  For ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”  1 Corinthians  6:19-20

“The Christian who truly enters into these two verses has solved some of the deepest problems of life  Those who recognize God’s absolute proprietorship of their bodies are not long in doubt as to where they should go, or what they should do.  Consecration is simply a matter of letting God have what He has paid for, or returning stolen property.

“Ye are bought with a price.”  It was an infinite price that God paid.  It was something more than silver and gold—the precious Blood of His only begotten Son.  God emphasizes the tremendous cost of redemption as an appeal to the heart of the redeemed.  The price He has paid measures His estimate of us.  He does not give a life so dear to Him for a soul that is worth nothing to Him.  He has laid down the gold of His heart – even Jesus Christ.  If we would go and stand on Calvary’s hill, and consider what it has cost heaven to purchase our salvation, we could not long withhold from Him what He rightfully owns—the full service of spirit, soul and body.  Yet how many are satisfied to say, “Jesus is mine,” who never go on to say, “I am his.”  One who takes this higher ground is bound to be careful what he does with property which belongs to another.

“When the thought of His proprietorship becomes uppermost, then we will simultaneously recognize the fact that being His, we are temples of the Holy Spirit.  Conscious of God’s ownership, and thoughtful of our Divine guest—the Holy Spirit—it is only natural that we should glorify God in our bodies and in our spirits which are His.  To glorify Him thus, is simply to exhibit the power and character of God in that which is His.

The Christian’s greatest joy is found in letting God possess His own property.”

--Mrs. Charles Cowman