Life is War - Part IV

Compiled and condensed from the writings and speeches of Ralph D. Winter

He who seeks to save his life will lose it

America today is a “save yourself” society if there ever was one. But does it really work? The underdeveloped societies suffer from one set of diseases: tuberculosis, malnutrition, pneumonia, parasites, typhoid, cholera, typhus, etc. Affluent America has virtually invented a whole new set of diseases: obesity, arteriosclerosis, heart disease, strokes, lung cancer, venereal disease, cirrhosis of the liver, drug addiction, alcoholism, divorce, battered children, suicide, murder. Take your choice.

• Obesity in the United States CC Falcorian • Labor-saving machines have turned out to be body-killing devices. Our affluence has allowed both mobility and isolation of the nuclear family and, as a result, our divorce courts, our prisons and our mental institutions are flooded. In saving ourselves we have nearly lost ourselves.

Now when Jesus said, “He who seeks to save his life will lose it,” he may have been referring to something like this. We really don’t have any basis for assuming that all God wants of us is to make each one of us a wonderful, glorious, worshipping believer. 1 John 3:8 says “The Son of God appeared for this purpose that he might destroy the works of the devil.” And “As my Father has sent me, even so I send you.”  John 20:21

The Bible more than any other thing in my life has really stopped and stunned and changed my life. And it’s something that you can’t laugh off.  I want to refer you to 2 Corinthians 5:15. He died for all so that they might have nice uniforms and a place to stay and food to eat and just get along wonderfully? No, that's not what it says. It says, “He died for all that they who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and rose again.” Do you know what that means? That means you have no options. You cannot say, "God has not called me." God has called you. You’re all part of the war effort. Let me read it again. “He died for all that they who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and rose again.”

What would happen to this world if more evangelical Christians were to realize that God blessed them with money in order to make them a blessing, not to pamper them?

~Roberta Winter