August 9, 2009
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"Can you consent to all this?"
This is an interesting quote: (a courtship letter to a father, taken from this powerful sermon)
"I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean, to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all this, for the sake of him who left His heavenly home, and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with the crown of righteous, brightened with the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Savior from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?"
How rare, it seems, are women (and men) like this... who are completely surrendered to God and willing to give up everything to follow Christ... who are ready to die, to lose their money, their health, their safety, their friends, their reputation, their fun-filled-life, their children, etc etc, for Christ's sake.
"Look," says the Teacher, "this is what I have discovered:
"Adding one thing to another to discover the scheme of things-
"While I was still searching but not finding-
I found one upright man among a thousand,
but not one upright woman among them all.
"This only have I found:
God made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes."
-- Solomon, Ecclesiastes 7:27-29"So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions."
-- Jesus Christ, Luke 14:33Challenging to me...
God, please help me to "give up all my own possessions" and put You absolutely first in my life...
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