SACRIFICE

I don’t know about you, but I hate being uncomfortable. What I mean is that sometimes I am right out of my comfort zone; an unfamiliar situation, eating strange food or just an awkward circumstance. I think we all can relate to that in one way or another. Those though are environmental but true sacrifice is not an easy thing and requires a will and mindset that is committed in a much deeper way.

As I write this week I think of a conversation I had with some younger friends of mine during  a summer a few years ago. They were just finished high school and their education and careers lay before them. They were committed Christians and enjoying their lives and were a great group of people to be around. Joining us in our conversation were two younger girls who were still in high school and they were looking up to these more “mature” young people. The younger ones were asking the older ones how to live a more dedicated life; after listening for a bit I quoted verse in Luke 9:23-24 where Jesus says  “23 Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.”
They all looked at me and one of the older ones spoke up and said “the bible doesn’t say deny yourself, God wants you to have the best life possible and wants only good things for you”. I understood his idea but the reality was that they all had the idea that life would be full of fun and excitement with only good things coming there way. So what is true sacrifice? Here is a story of someone who truly understood the meaning. I read this biography a few years and it impacted me.

William Borden. Borden, born in 1887, was the gifted son of a wealthy family in Chicago. From an early age, through the influence of his godly mother, he had an interest in spiritual things. He attended Moody Church when the pastor was R. A. Torrey, and at the age of seventeen he surrendered to missionary service.
He attended Yale University and quickly became one of the leading figures on campus. Among his achievements was to play all the major sports, including football, wrestling, baseball, and rowing, and to be elected president of Phi Beta Kappa. After graduation he went to Princeton Seminary. During his years there he donated $70,000 of his personal fortune to Christian work. After completion of seminary training he became a director of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago.
But he was not satisfied to help others go the mission field. He wanted to go himself. Soon after deciding to dedicate his life to reaching the Muslims in China, he took passage on a ship and was on his way. He reached Port Said in Egypt on New Year's Day, 1913, when he was age 25. But just a few months later, before he was able to travel further toward his goal, he died of cerebral meningitis.
Here was a man who made sacrifices. During his college years, when he was giving thousands to Christian work, he denied himself a car, thinking it an unjustifiable luxury. Because he expected to go someday to a difficult mission field, he never married, saying that it would be cruel to take a woman with him. Why would it be cruel? "Because the woman always fared the worst, often succumbing when the man survived." What else did Borden give up? A life of every possible comfort and pleasure, because he was rich—a life of worldly achievement and influence, because he was a born leader with an exceptional mind.
Was his a wasted life? Consider this. Shortly before going to the field, Borden willed most of his fortune to the work of God, so that at his death almost a million dollars (equivalent to about 25 million today) was pumped into missionary enterprises around the world. Moreover, this man was so highly respected that his death sent shock waves throughout the Christian world. The number of young people stirred by his sacrifice to dedicate their own lives to God was beyond count.
Are we willing to sacrifice?

By: Pastor David Jones