This is going to get a little more personal than I usually do, but it’s just how I feel. This is more like a diary entry probably, but I don’t keep a diary, so this is the medium I’ll use to express how I’m feeling.
“Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.” – Philippians 2:17-18
Paul wrote his letter to the church at Phillipi while he was imprisoned for sharing the Gospel. Here Paul is saying that even if he is beaten, chained, starved, and killed in exchange for sharing the Gospel with the Philippians, he would be glad for it and the Philippians should be too.
It makes me wonder: what would my life look like if I counted extreme risks like this as reasons to rejoice? What would my days look like? How generous would I be? How fearless would I be? If I truly counted the salvation of others as more important than my own life and well-being—even more, if I counted the loss of my privileges for the sake of others as reasons to rejoice—what would my life look like?
Better yet, what would the lives of those around me look like? If I poured out myself for the sake of others, what effect would that have on my surroundings? My family? My friends? My neighbors? My enemies? My critics? My church? My brothers and sisters in Christ?
Does the Gospel require this of me? Does the sake of the glory of God compel me to live like this? Even if it doesn’t, I want my heart to be there. I don’t want to merely drift through this Christian life disrupting as little of this world as possible. I want there to be a holy chaos that follows me.
I want it to be said of me: he gave everything for Him, for us.