I gave my son a copy of Elisabeth Elliot’s Through Gates of Splendor this morning. It’s the story of Jim Elliot’s martyrdom in South America–he who said: “He is no fool to give what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
Thirty years ago when I first read this book, I was impacted by one simple point, and it has stuck to me like glue ever since. It was said of this heroic man that he functioned with a childlike kind of obedience. Having resolved the basic question regarding the divine authorship of the Bible, life became pretty simple for him: find out what it says and then do it. Don’t question, fight, quarrel with, or resist what the Bible says. Simply obey.
Since what the Bible says God says, it only follows that what God says in the Bible, I must do. I hope my son gets that concept early. It’ll spare him much sorrow, many sins, and great loss. Not that he, or I will ever get it all right, but we can be spared all kinds of angst and anguish if we simply approach the Bible every day with a simple prayer, followed by a resolve.
The prayer? ”Sovereign Father, show me your will from your Word today and give me grace to do it.”
The resolve? In the words of one old saint: “To be as holy today (i.e. joyfully and lovingly obedient to the Father) as a redeemed sinner can possibly be.”
That about covers it.
For my part, true heroism is not measured so much by a willingness to die for Christ as by a willingness to live for him. In other words, what made Jim Elliot a hero is not that he died on some jungle shore, but that he obeyed like a child.
love it. sounds like it’s something we should include on the WBD reading list for next year!
My parents caught that simple truth when they became Christians and have lived their lives following the same resolve. I rejoice in such a legacy.
How we all could impact this world for Christ if we would only be obedient to His word.To live is Christ to die is gain phil1:21
“Having resolved the basic question regarding the divine authorship of the Bible”………………that’s the real watershed isn’t it? Are we sufficiently pierced to the core by the answer to that question, pierced to the point of trembling, joyful, trust-filled obedience? I sometimes think that the question has not been resolved in many of our minds with the clarity and force that it needs to be.
Thanks for the reminder. May it press in upon us.