To Live as Christ

A week ago found me eagerly reading the pages of "A Severe Mercy." I mentioned in my last post that I've been looking forward to reading this book for almost four years, now I'm almost done with it, and I can see why Mama and The Autumn Rain like it so much. The ideas created within the pages of this book are beautiful, and the questions if considered and conclusions reached have the potential to be completely life changing.

The most challenging question I've come upon so far is how far am I willing to go to further the kingdom of God? Am I willing to offer my life as a trade off for the salvation of a fellow man? Davy petitioned not even for her husbands salvation, but for her husband to have a life full of joy and centered around Christ, she was willing to die if Christ would give her husband a Christ-centered joy. I'm not sure that I could say "Father you can take me home if you will give my family an abiding joy in you." But Davy did, what's more, Christ took her at her word, he gave Davy and her husband a year of Christ-centered joy, and then he took Davy home to himself.

I am amazed by the way that Davy mirrored the life of Christ in her own life. It is incredible to me the lengths that Davy went to live as Christ lived, even to the point of offering up her life so that someone else might find a greater fulfillment in Christ. The idea just blows me away, and yet it is an idea that I've been familiar with my whole life, after all isn't that what Christ did for me? Somehow when it isn't God making the sacrifice it changes my perception of it All of a sudden it is here taking place in the century that I was born in, just another person, not the son of God, but she was willing to give up her life for the glory of God. It makes the sacrifice more of a real thing for me, more tangible, and yet so much greater when I think of all the life that was given up. The sacrifice of ones life is a huge sacrifice, and that sacrifice was made for me by the son of God.