John Keith Falconer, a Scottish missionary, said, "I have but one candle of life to burn, and I would rather burn it out in a land filled with darkness than in a land flooded with light.”
What God requires of us – no matter who we are – is a life of sacrifice. You cannot call yourself a Christian and not be fully abandoned to God. It’s impossible. Anything less is a disgrace to the name we advance forth in the world with.
It’s a hard truth to swallow.
There’s a flame that’s been flickering in my stomach for quite some time, but it’s only been a flicker; its chances of being snuffed out by a gust of wind is strong.
This morning I felt the Lord grab a can of kerosene and He’s positioned and ready to dump it on me. He said,
“Matthew, there’s a flame inside of you. You’ve been letting it burn, yes, but you haven’t been willing to let it consume you. I want you to be engulfed in my passion, my heart… my furious love.”
And so the flame within me is roaring with hunger! It’s as if it can taste the fuel and the cost that Christ wants to pour over me.
I have to weigh the consequences of such an act though: certain death. I will essentially be a pillar of fire. But why not burn as bright as I can in a land of darkness?
The challenge is that America, despite its downfalls, is a land radiating with a lot of light. There are a lot of flames burning here. But the Church shouldn’t be measured by its seating capacity, but rather its sending capacity (Mike Stachura).
The flame of love burning deep inside of me is quickly to become a roaring fire, a beacon of light that obligates me to step outside of my comfort zone, to step even further out of the walls of safety that I’ve created for myself here, and to sprint into an even greater degree of abandonment and sacrifice.
In the words of one of my closest brothers, “half-assed Christianity just isn’t my thing.”
I resonate with that.
So I’m positioning myself on my face later today. I’m going to take the plunge in a bucket of fire, passion, and fury. He’s willing to give me more… and my heart just wants to burn with a deeper intimacy and a greater degree of likeness as to who He is. After all, “the nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become…” (Henry Martyn).
