for thoughts and reflections

Recently I read the book, 'Shadow of the Almighty', which is the 'before' story of Jim Elliot. Excellent book which I would recommend every Christian (and non-Chrisian)to read. Over the next couple of posts, I will share some snippets from the book that really stood out to me.

The book was written by his wife. It is more of combination of journal writings and letters of Mr. Elliot with comments from her to fill it out. It is also divided by his age at the time. It is truly neat to see how this man of God grew over the years. It is humbling to see what grace and faith had been given to him at such a young age!

The first entry I noted was a quote by Spurgeon. Mr. Elliot was 21 at the time.

Little faith will bring the soul to heaven, but much faith will bring heaven to the soul.

Isn't that wonderful??? I have to say I have tasted this bit of heaven in my soul on occasion, but sadly - I often run my days with no conscious thought on little faith. I want to be so enamored with my Lord that every day is a day of great faith. My prayer is 'Lord, help my unbelief!'.

I often find myself questioning and then searching the Scriptures for the 'every day things' that I have learned to live by. So much of our life is learned behavior because of our culture and society. It is incredible the things we take for granted because 'this is the way it has always been done' or 'this is life' or some other idea of what life truly is. I take seriously - more so as I grow closer to my Lord that the chief end of man is to know God and to make Him known. For this reason, I have been prompted at times to really look at different areas and then take it to Scripture. I know one area the Lord worked on first with me personally was holidays and TV. Halloween was the first to go. Next came Santa. He is no longer welcomed in our home or our thoughts. Then...it was the TV.

Now, I am not bashing anyone that still celebrates Halloween or has Santa or even has TV...I'm just saying that I no longer have a desire to have any of those things in my life. While all things might be lawful, not all things are profitable.

This brings me to the next entry I recorded from pg. 77:

I am more convinced than ever that God deals with individuals as they individually respond to His word, regardless of their church association. So that I am beginning to think that the thing to be stressed is not the form of assembly worship, but eager searching and obedience to the Scriptures. Nothing else will make the man of God 'throughly furnished', fruitful in every good work.

This challenged me to spend more time in the Word. How am I to live for my Lord if I don't know what He wants from me? How can the promptings of the Spirit be put into action if I do not have communion and communication with my Savior through prayer and reading His word?

This idea of eager searching and obedience to the Scriptures is closely linked to a prayer he had from pg. 99:

Pray that I might not become so involved that I fail to apply myself to the Scriptures and apply all the Scriptures to myself.

I truly enjoyed learning from this man of God. He has given me good meat to chew and apply to my own life as I continually test myself to see if I am in the faith.

More to come from Mr. Elliot!