Dear Ones,
Hope you had a wonderful weekend. We had our first snow yesterday but didn’t amount to much. Today I am going to make apple pie and go to Aldi’s and Exercise class.
Devotions from Judy’s heart
Have you ever done something risky that set you on a course that turned into something big and exciting? I have been reading about ordinary people who felt God calling them to leave family and comforts to risk everything and go where He was sending them. They took one small step and God led them into a life of sacrifice and adventure. I have been reading the lives of pioneer missionaries who were huge risk-takers and counted everything as loss for the sake of gaining Christ. (Phil.3:7-9)

Familiar to most of us is Jim Elliot, whose brief life among the Auca Indians of Ecuador ended with his martyrdom, along with four fellow missionaries. He had written in his journal, “God, I pray Thee light these idle sticks of my life that I may burn up for Thee. Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine. I seek not a long life but a full one, like you Lord Jesus.” His life was short for he died at only 29 years of age but he considered the salvation of the lost more important than his comfort or his very life. His wife Elisabeth wrote a biography of her husband and then carried on his work with the very people who had murdered her husband.

I read of others who made sacrifices and took the risk to go where they felt called by God. C.T. Studd was considered the best English athlete of his day. He experienced a renewal of his faith at a crusade and felt called to Africa as an evangelist. Then there was Mary Slessor, a worker in a textile factory in Scotland who, when she came to faith became active in street ministry and witnessed wherever she went. God laid a burden on her heart to go to Nigeria to a cannibalistic, savage tribe. Later she built a mission house, a school and a church, rescued orphans and even adopted some of them. God also used her for intervening in tribal affairs and she became their tribal mediator. Then there was William Carey, a cobbler. When he came to the Lord, he became a lay preacher with a passion for world missions. He went to India and started a school and a college. He mastered many languages, translated the Bible into six of the languages and parts of the Bible into twenty-nine others.

The list could go on and on of those who took a step of faith and risked their lives. They didn’t put limits on what God could do through them. For us also, the ultimate sacrifice is to give our whole selves to God. Who knows what He will do through us?

Challenge for today: When you see a need around you, pray about it, and ask the Lord if he wants you to take a step to meet that need. (It could be to share Him with an unsaved neighbor, a youth program that needs help, a soup kitchen coordinator, etc.)
Blessings on your week and prayers and love, Judy