Original Entry: April 23, 2008
McMinnville, OR
I have received full payment and even more; I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God. And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:18-19
One of my obviously overweight college buddies had a poster in his dorm room of a grotesquely obese college guy with no shirt on, and sitting on a keg of beer. The caption for the poster said simply, “No Pain, No Pain” as an obvious spin on the sports mantra of “No Pain, No Gain.” Another phrase used to use when training was, “If it hurts, it works.” More recently I saw a Marine add on a tee shirt that simply read, “Pain is weakness leaving the body!”
Yes, I love it!
Several years ago I was saving to buy my dad’s Beretta 301 A. To offset the cost, one of the teens in my youth group was going to buy my Remington model 870 that came with wood and synthetic stocks. He had the money, pulled out his wallet, but then I heard it. I heard the whisper, “Give him the gun.”
So I did. I gave him the shotgun and you know what? It hurt. When my dad found out he completely lost it. Plus, I had no money for the new shotgun, and it took me several more months to pay off dad.
That young man is now a pastor. I can only hope and wonder if that sacrifice of obedience to the Whisper helped in his decision to pastor.
God loves sacrifice. Sacrifice is close to God. Often in Scripture we read of sacrifice being a “fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God (18).” God loves sacrifice because sacrifice is a part of God. Just as God is love (1 John 4:8 and 16), God is also sacrifice. Sacrifice is part of God’s nature (Romans 3:25, Philippians 2:8-10). It was God who offered a sacrifice for Adam and Eve’s sin then clothed them in animal’s fur (Genesis 3:21). It was God who sacrificed his son on our behalf. It was God who calls men to sacrifice for their families just as Christ died for the Church.
How do men differentiate between general giving and extreme sacrifice? Where is the line of demarcation between the giving of ourselves and sacrificing of ourselves?
I believe that line is found in one word-pain.
No pain, no gain.
If it hurts it works.
