Matthew-055

 

Today, we continue to examine the roots of spiritual power, how God’s purpose may be fulfilled in us, that each one of his people become greater than John the Baptist. We come to the meaning of the cross in the life of the disciple in Luke 9:23-25. If only we can apply the Lord Jesus’ words into our lives, we shall find that truly God can make us to be greater than John the Baptist.

Notice that Jesus was not addressing merely some disciples. It is addressed to everyone, and that means you and me:

This is not a once-for-all action; it’s a daily, continuing process. Take up your cross every day. Who said that salvation is a once-for-all thing? All you have to do is take up the cross once, then maybe you can drop it by the wayside and carry on without the load of the cross, and you are still going to be the Lord Jesus’ disciple. No, the Lord Jesus said, “Unless you take up your cross daily and follow me, you cannot be my disciple. If anyone comes after me, that is the way it has to be.”

Why does he make this requirement? We want to speak about the cross and the power to save, the power to communicate life. What is salvation about? Is it just about how we can save ourselves? This is not so in the Bible. And this is the point I would like to show you today, that in the attempt to save yourself, you will lose everything: “He who would save his life will lose it. But he who would save his life for my sake and the gospel’s, will save it.” But are you not trying to save your life? You are trying to save your soul. The word “soul” translates the Greek word which means “life.” In the very attempt to save your soul or your life, you will lose it. But many Christians don’t understand this. So Christians become as selfish as anyone else. We shall deal with this under the classical reference system of three points.

 

1. The cross and power

The first point I would like to talk to you about is concerning the cross and power, the power to get God’s work done. Let us start by reading a curious passage from 2 Kings 13: 20-21. What does this incident concerning Elisha, that mighty man of God mean?

Moab is on the west side of Israel, so the Moabites are a neighboring tribe of nomads who travel around looking after sheep. This is a very interesting incident here! Many times, I have tried to picture this incident in my mind. Now you need to know something about burial systems in Israel otherwise you will have great difficulty under­standing this passage. If Elisha was buried and had already died for some time since only his bones are mentioned here, how come his grave is still open and somebody got thrown into his grave in the rush of the moment? In Israel, burials took place in caves; not as we dig a hole in the ground. They were buried in caves, usually in the rocks, and there were niches inside the caves. Some caves have many chambers, one after another. I visited one that was built around in a circle, and along the side of the cave on the rock walls, there were niches where people placed bones. Or sometimes, you had a whole shelf and the dead person was laid in the shelf.

Clearly, these people were burying this man. It was not mentioned who this man was since he appears to be of no particular signifi­cance. He was being brought into the burial cave. The people were carrying him in and there was news of the Moabites coming. Perhaps, while they were proceeding to the inner chamber to put this man in his own proper shelf, they realized that if they go much further in, they would not have time to get out before the Moabites come. So they found whatever shelf was nearest. They had long since forgotten that it was Elisha’s shelf. They shoved him in there in order to make a quick exit.

But “as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood on his feet.” Now, I don’t know what was the greater shock for these people! Whether it was the Moabites outside, or this man suddenly risen from the dead! These poor people were terrified from within and without! Certainly, to see a man who is resurrected can be more frightening than the Moabites out there! They did not know whether to go out or come in! They got caught in between the two situations.

 

Every true servant of God is a channel of life to others

Why does the Bible record this? What is the point of all this? Why do we have to know this? Of course, the whole point is to tell us some­thing about Elisha. This whole section has to do with Elisha, and it tells us this amazing fact that the mighty man of God, Elisha, who had been in the ministry of the Word of God with such power throughout his life that life was being channeled constantly through him to others. This is what being saved is about. It is to become a channel of salvation to others, and that is what Elisha was all through his life. He channeled God’s life to others, in fact, physical and spiritual. But this great servant of God had died, and he had been buried, more or less forgotten in the burial cave, and Yahweh God has vindicated his servant again, so that even in death he communicated life! Isn’t that remarkable?

God wants to bring this point to us: that every servant of God is meant to be a channel of life. And this is so vividly illustrated by the fact that God continued to work with power through his servant even after his death.

Of course, these things still happen in another way. Often, when you read a book that is very helpful to you spiritually, the person who wrote that book may have been long dead. Although he is dead, he is still speaking to you through the printed page which is no more alive than the bones of a dead man. That physically dead page in front of you is bringing spiritual life to you. So that person’s ministry continues to give blessing although he has died long ago. So it is, with every true servant of God, whether in life or in death, Paul says, “but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.” (Phil. 1:20b)

 

Elisha’s power to raise the dead

There is another thing to notice. We have just noticed that Elisha, this mighty man of God, was a channel of life, and certainly, he was not greater than John the Baptist, according to the words of the Lord Jesus. God’s power to communicate life is immense, and it worked through Jesus. Let us briefly compare this with Elisha’s power. In 2 Kings 4:32-37, we read that Elisha raised from the dead the Shunamite woman’s son, who had died. What happened? How did Elisha raise this dead boy? It’s very interesting! He completely stretched himself out upon this dead boy until the boy came back to life. It is this physical contact, giving himself to cover this boy completely, until the boy came to life.

To show you how much greater is the power of the Lord Jesus, it is mentioned that he raised the dead on three different occasions in the Gospels. But the Lord Jesus did not have to stretch himself out upon the dead. In fact, he did not even have to touch the person. One word of command, “Arise,” and the dead rose! The first instance is in Luke 7:14, the raising of the dead son of the widow of Nain.

I visited Galilee with some co-workers, and Nain is on a small hill in Galilee. It is still there today. The Lord Jesus walked into Nain and the funeral procession was going by. The mother was broken-hearted because that was her only son which meant that not only had she lost her dearest and best, but she would also have no more livelihood from henceforth. There was no social welfare service in Israel. When your dear ones die, you are condemned to hunger and to destitution, perhaps even to begging on the streets. But the Lord Jesus saw the funeral procession and he stopped it, and he told the young man, “Arise,” and the dead rose.

The second occasion is in the next chapter, Luke 8:54, it refers to Jairus’ daughter. Again, Jairus’ daughter was raised. In this case, he did hold her hand and commanded her to rise. Of course, as in the previous case, he did not have to touch her at all. He raised her from the dead too.

The third occasion is very well-known in John Chapter 11, when the Lord Jesus raised Lazarus. Again, it was simply a word of command, without any physical contact.

 

Peter and Paul raised the dead

Here we see that the power of the Lord Jesus is greater than John the Baptist’s. You’ll remember that the Lord Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.” (Jo.14:12). We see that exactly in Acts 5:15-16. In this case, not only is there no physical contact, there is not even a word being said, and there was the power to communicate life and healing:

Peter neither touched the people nor did he say a word; his shadow just passed over them. They would just like to have his shadow. The power of God brings life and healing through his servant just through the shadow! That is the greatness of God working through his servant.

The same is true of the apostle Paul in Acts 19:11-12.

When handkerchiefs and aprons that had been in contact with Paul touched the sick, or someone possessed with an evil spirit, they were instantly healed.

The power of God that worked through the Lord Jesus, works through Peter and Paul! Peter had no power. Paul had no power. Do you remember when Peter healed the crippled man, the people were all amazed and he said,

Paul had no power. It’s simply God’s power working through him. The power of Paul and the power of the Lord Jesus come from the same source: the power of God. Just as Jesus said in John 14:12,

Not even healing by his shadow or by cloth that had been in contact with him happened in the ministry of the Lord Jesus. But you see it happening through Peter and through Paul.

Where is the secret of this power? From the Lord Jesus to the apostle Peter, to the apostle Paul, there seems to be an increase of power – “greater works.” But since that time, it has all gone downhill. We have hit rock bottom and right past the bottom. We are in a bad way. What happened?

 

The cross is the secret of spiritual power

This is the reason for this series of messages. The cross is the whole secret. Why did Paul have this power? It’s because he said, “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Gal. 6:14) He does not glory in anything else. He does not boast in his degrees, his knowledge, his eloquence, his skills, his long record of success. He’s not interested in any of this. “I glory in one thing,” Paul says, “the cross of Christ.” That is the difference. That is why he has power. That is why the church has no power.

Let us remember this: God wants us to be a channel of his life and of his power, not so that we can feel good, not so that we can feel that we are something, but so that we can become nothing but a channel of life and the saving power of God to others. Unless we are willing to become nothing but that channel, we will not be anything spiritually.

 

2. The cross and the self

The second thing that I would like to touch on is this: We have heard the words “power”, “saving” and “salvation” and the like being used repeatedly, and you say, “It seems to me that Christians are motivated by much the same selfishness as the non-Christian. You want to be saved because you want to get to heaven.” Well, the non-Christian wants his heaven on earth and you want your heaven in heaven because your heaven in heaven is more permanent than the heaven on earth. Whatever the case may be, are you not motivated by the same desire for heaven, whether it be on earth or in heaven? You are motivated by the same desire to get yourself saved, driven by the same selfishness, isn’t it?

There is truth in this contention up to a point. I look around and I see many Christians who are really motivated by nothing much more than selfishness. They don’t care about anyone else. They only want to get themselves saved: “So long as I can get to heaven, I don’t really care about you lot. But if you lot getting saved may help me somewhat to get to heaven, I don’t mind that either.” So where is the difference? Isn’t it equally selfish? Are we not motivated by the same thing?

On the other hand, shall we say that it is better to have no desires? Is it somehow more desirable to desire Nirvana? Non-existence? The place of no desires? Is that somehow more spiritual? So we need to have some desires, hopefully good desires. But it seems that all good desires carry with them a certain degree of selfishness because if we desire something good, we desire it for ourselves. You want to have it precisely because it is good, and because you want to have it, isn’t that motivated by some kind of selfishness?

There is no doubt there is truth in this. When you look back and ask yourself why you wanted to be saved in the first place, surely it was motivated by the desire to have eternal life. You don’t want to perish; you want eternal life. Isn’t this very desire for this good thing, eternal life, motivated by a desire to preserve your self? Therefore isn’t that selfishness?

One has to say there is truth in that. There is truth. We were motivated by a certain degree of selfishness when we first became Christians. I think it’s hard to deny this. But this is the point. If we stay at that level, in the very attempt to save our souls, we will lose it.

That is where the cross and self come in. The more I contemplate the wisdom of God, the more I am amazed.

 

God uses our selfishness to destroy the selfish self

What God does is this. What does Jesus in say Luke 9:24?

The amazing thing about the cross is this: God takes your very selfishness and uses that selfishness to destroy the selfish self. I wonder if you follow that sentence. It isn’t as complicated as it sounds. God takes that very selfishness in you and uses that selfishness to destroy the selfish self. It is really amazing! Why? Since you want to be saved, the Lord said, “If you want to be saved, you will lose your life.” Therefore, only by losing your life will you be saved. So you discover that in the very desire to save yourself, you have to lose yourself in order to be saved!

Oh! The wisdom of God is incredible! More and more as you study the teaching of the Lord Jesus, you begin to see, as Paul says in Romans 11:33, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and know­ledge of God!” He knows that we are selfish. He knows that we will come to salvation only because we are motivated by the selfish desire to be saved.

Why did you go to a gospel meeting? Was it because you wanted to give yourself at the gospel meeting? No. Was it because you wanted to give your money to the preaching of the gospel? Of course not! You went to the gospel meeting because you wanted to see if you could get something for yourself. Your motive was purely selfish. You wanted to get eternal life for yourself. Or maybe your motive was not even as high as getting eternal life, maybe you wanted to get a husband or a wife, or a girlfriend or a boyfriend. It wasn’t even as exalted as getting eternal life. You went there out of a selfish motive. You sat there listening to the gospel, hoping that it would finish sooner so you can talk to the girl or the boy you wanted to see. You thought, “It’s so long-winded! Let’s get to the refreshments!”

So you went there really because your mind was not on the gospel. Your mind was on this girl or boy or whatever other reasons were there. But week after week, the gospel began to strike you. Gradual­ly, you began to forget more and more the original reason for coming, and the Word of God began to grip you. This has happened again and again. And eventually, you came with a selfish reason, true, but God got hold of you, didn’t he? God uses that very selfishness to destroy the self to bring in a new kind of person.

Now that is a long, long process. It doesn’t happen in five minutes. Eventually, God gets through and gradually, you see the selfishness disappearing. Gradually, you see that person who started out so selfishly, learning to give himself more and more. And it is in the very process of giving that God’s life comes to you.

So this is the second point: we start with selfish reasons. I don’t think any honest Christian would deny this. God in his wisdom uses the cross to destroy the self and bring forth a new Christ-like person, by using your selfishness in that very process.

 

My personal experience

I was an absolutely, incredibly selfish person. I will be honest with you. In all the days of my military ambitions, I was surely thinking about the glory of China, but I made sure that my own glory was to be in the glory of China. There will be me with my armies, me with my glory, so that as China was raised to glory, so would I. I would be the key person in this glorification in those selfish dreams of mine.

So when I came to the gospel, wasn’t it for selfish reasons? Certainly it was! I was seeking some kind of direction and meaning in life that was more enduring than these transient dreams. I was seeking for myself what was eternal and lasting. But God used the selfishness.

And now I can hardly believe it. When I search into my heart, I have to say honestly, God has so changed me that I cannot believe what he has done in me! That I can genuinely love other people was simply beyond my dreams! It was something I didn’t even want in those times. Who wants to have the desire to live for others? Forget the other people! It’s me! And yet, over the years, God changes you so that you really care for other people, you really love other people, you are really willing to lay down your life, to pour out yourself for them. And you don’t even know why this change came about.

God in his wisdom, through the cross, has done this amazing thing of destroying the self in my life. And he will do it in your life too. This is the second point: the cross and self. It is only in this way that we have power, which is the first point: the cross and power.

 

3. The cross and saviorhood

Let us turn the third and last point: the cross and saviorhood. What do we mean by this? The Lord Jesus says, “You must take up your cross every day if you are going to be my disciple.” And he immediately goes on to say that it means losing your life because in the process of losing your life you will gain it. But if you try not to lose it, that is exactly when you will lose it.

 

Why must you and I take up the cross daily?

Here I would like to focus the whole question by using another question. Think about it for a moment. Christ died on the cross for my sins and your sins, and through the cross, he completed his atoning work for all of us, so that you and I may have eternal life and be saved, and we thank God for it. But that raises the question: Since he died and his atonement is perfect, then why do I need to carry the cross? He carried the cross already, so why do you and I need to carry the cross? What is the point that we are both doing this? It’s enough that he carried the cross.

You say, “Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you carried the cross. It’s so kind of you. I am really so touched by your love for me.” It’s so good if we stopped the gospel there as most preachers do. What is the whole gospel to them? “Jesus died for our sins. Hallelujah!” Indeed, we can join in with a hearty hallelujah!

Yet, our problem begins: If Jesus carried the cross, why do I have to carry the cross? Did Jesus somehow forget that he was going to bear the cross? Is it that somehow he needed some company in this mat­ter? Why does he ask us to follow after him? He is carrying the cross in front and he asked us to carry the cross after him. Is his cross not enough? Surely, his cross, his atonement is enough. It says that it is a full atonement. The Scripture tells us that his salvation is enough. Then why do we need to carry a cross? Why this requirement?

Why didn’t the Lord Jesus say, “I’ve carried the cross, I have done it all. I’ve taken all the suffering. There is nothing left for you to do. From now on, you just go to church, clap your hands, sing hallelujah, dance, and have a good time because I took the cross. That’s the end of the work of salvation for you.”

Now that sounds like the gospel we are very used to hearing. Isn’t that what every preacher and evangelist is telling us? Are there two crosses? One is his cross, and one is the cross that each one of us has to bear daily? So every day, you have to lug this heavy cross onto your shoulders, and on you go towards Calvary. Towards Calvary? Jesus has already been there. He has already done it all. Why do you have to go to Calvary? But after all, you are following him, so presumably, you go where he goes. If he went to Calvary, are we going for a picnic somewhere else?

How do you understand “take up your cross”? Perhaps we’ll leave that as an assignment: What is the significance of our cross? Is it that the Lord Jesus thinks it is rather good that we suffer a bit? Maybe he’s afraid that we might go off to a picnic, so he says, “No, I’m going to make life a bit hard on you. In case you decide to have a good life, I’ll impose a cross on you. Ah! That will cut you down to size and keep you in shape. Otherwise you’ll get flabby around the middle, you’ll get weak. So every day, you drag this cross along so that you’ve got spiritual exercise.” What do we need the cross for?

Not understanding the significance of our cross is precisely why the church becomes powerless. We think that because Jesus died for me, I have nothing left to do except to sing hallelujahs. And if that’s not good enough, I will try singing in tongues as well.

I am saying this because there are many Christians who desire spiritual gifts for the same utterly selfish motives. Their selfishness is enough to make one sick! They want this experience and that experience simply to make themselves feel better. “I am a superior Christian. Have you spoken in tongues? But I have! Poor fellow, you’re just a lower-class Christian. I am higher-class. I speak in tongues! Did you speak only once? Poor guy! I speak every day!”

I once heard that a pastor got into the pulpit to demonstrate tongues at the pulpit! He said that speaking tongues is very easy, so he started out talking in tongues. Well, I think I can manage that one too. You can also do that with a little bit of imagination. The question is, what are you proving? Are you just proving that you are a superior Christian? So there are people looking for the gift so that they come out with a good feeling.

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against tongues. When rightly used, it has to do with a deepening communion with God. But if you seek tongues merely for selfish gratification, that is not the purpose of tongues. A Christian should not pursue a spiritual gift out of selfishness because that is going entirely down the wrong road. The cross is there to destroy selfishness. Any Christian who has been a Christian for years and is still being trained in this kind of selfishness does not know what Christianity is about.

 

The cross is: Sacrifice

So we are back to the same question: Why did the Lord Jesus want us to carry the cross? To understand this question, we have to understand the meaning of the cross. The cross has to do with sacrifice. Understand this word “sacrifice,” because this is another word that Christians often don’t understand.

Hebrews 9:14 says,

And verse 26 says,

Verse 14 speaks of Christ’s blood, and verse 26 speaks of sacrifice of himself upon the cross. The cross is sacrifice.

In 1 Corinthians 15:31, Paul applies this kind of sacrifice to himself:

What Paul is saying here is: “I risk my life every single day. I die spiritually, and I am also in danger physically.” Then he goes on to say he fought with lions in Ephesus and so forth. His life is in constant danger in the ministry that the Lord Jesus has committed to him. (Ac. 9:15-16)

So the Lord Jesus’ cross is a cross of sacrifice. What is the cross we carry? It is also sacrifice. The apostle Paul says the same thing in Romans 8:36, and he is quoting from Psalm 44:22.

The sheep to be slaughtered are the sheep to be sacrificed for sin in the temple.

He says much the same thing in 2 Corinthians 4:11, “For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our mortal flesh.” Now think carefully on these words in verse12: “So death is at work in us, but life in you.”

“We die so that you can live” sounds pretty much like what the Lord Jesus is doing: He died so that we can live. Death was at work in him so that life could be at work in us. Paul is saying these words not in relation to the Lord Jesus but in relation to himself and the co-workers, the apostles: “So death is at work in us (not just in me) but life in you. We die all the time.” Can you understand this kind of language? Or does this language sound strange to you? Unless you know what is to be a living sacrifice that Paul called every Christian to be, you don’t understand this language.

Let us consider: What is sacrifice? Sacrifice is not a matter of giving up this or that, like giving up or sacrificing a meal. This is not the Biblical language. Sacrifice is a matter of giving up your life for some other person. What you give up for yourself is not sacrifice in the Bible. This is the misuse in the English language. In the Bible, sacrifice is always for someone else. Paul says we are like sheep taken to the slaughter. Does Paul die for himself? No! That is why he said, “Death is at work in us so that life can be at work in you. We die for you.”

Do you say the sheep that is taken into the temple to be slaughtered was being killed for its own sins, for its own needs? Of course not! Every sheep that was being sacrificed in the temple was laying down its life for someone else. That is the point you must understand. No sacrifice is rightly so called unless it is offered up for the benefit of someone else, whether it be offered up dead or alive. I say alive, because the scapegoat was sent into the wilderness, and perhaps die in the wilderness. It was not actually slaughtered. (Lev. 16:10) So whether living or dying, Paul says, we always live as a sacrifice. We don’t only die as a sacrifice; we live as a sacrifice.

 

We must also imitate Jesus: Take up the cross for others

Neither did Christ die for himself. He did not carry the cross for himself, he carried the cross for us. Why do we carry the cross? We still imagine foolishly that we are carrying the cross for ourselves. If we carry the cross for ourselves, then Christ’s cross was not suffi­cient for us. Then his death is not enough for us. We have to die for ourselves too. Oh no. We have failed to understand a fundamental aspect of the Lord Jesus’ teaching. When he calls us to take up our cross daily, it’s not for our own sake. He is calling us to join him in the ministry of salvation. What does it mean? It means that he died for us so that we, having received that life, will pass it on to others, whether through life or through death.

Do you understand what the Lord Jesus is saying? The Lord Jesus says, if you want to be his disciple, that is going to be your mentality, or else you are never going to be a disciple at all. You will receive eternal life, God’s life through Jesus’ cross, but you will only have it when you in your turn take up the cross for others.

Do you understand this language? That is what I meant in the second point about the wisdom of God, that in your very desire to be saved, through that selfish desire, he destroys your selfishness. His require­ment of you is that if you want to be saved, then pass on that salvation to others. If you don’t pass it on to others, you won’t have it yourself either. No Christian sitting complacently in his church seat, or in his home seat will ever be saved, if he thinks he is saved by simply saving himself, and that is all that matters. That is why we are called to be a light in the world, that is, transmit God’s light and God’s life to others. Light is usually a picture of life in the Bible.

I would like you to deeply understand this point extremely clearly. If you think you will be saved simply by believing in Jesus, and you are going to get to heaven, you don’t understand the Lord Jesus’ teaching. Yes, indeed it is through faith that you receive his salvation. Indeed, his salvation is enough for you and for me. We don’t earn our salvation, but we must become channels of it. And unless we become channels of his salvation, we will not have salvation. And in the process of being a channel of that salvation, we are giving ourselves to others just as Jesus gave himself to us.

 

You must lose your self to be saved

Salvation is not a piece of thing people sort of buy in a shop and pass it on. Salvation is something transmitted through your life to others, if it is correctly transmitted at all.

Bringing salvation to others is not a matter of giving out a tract on the street and saying, “Have you believed in Jesus? Here are the Four Spiritual Laws. Sit down while I’m talking to you, and listen well because your life depends on it.” So you give him a lecture. You ham­mer the gospel into him. If he rejects it, you’ll say, “Go away! You’re not fit to be saved. You weren’t predestined to be saved so get out of my sight!” Or else you would say, “I have pity on you! Maybe one day you’ll wake up!” If we have these attitudes, we have not understood salvation.

Salvation is not about giving out tracts, it is a matter of giving yourself. If you don’t give yourself, you have given nothing that is worth giving. You must pour out yourself to others. Jesus didn’t just give us the Old Testament and said, “Read it and you’ll be saved.” If this were so, then he did not have to go to the cross. He had to give his own life for our salvation, and the Lord Jesus is saying here, “You also have to do the same. You’ve got to take up this cross and give yourself on that cross to others.” Evangelizing is not losing your tract, not losing some money, but losing your life.”

There is the different orientation of thinking. Sometimes, we are willing to give out tracts. We are even willing to purchase them with our own money – a few dollars or even a few hundred dollars. But it is giving of yourself, giving of your time, your whole being, your concern, your love. We can give a tract without any real love. We treat a person as an object of being saved, that we can count the statistics: I’ve saved 15 people this year. Or if they are like sheep, you would say, “I’ve got 15 sheep.” There is no love in this. Love is the giving of your self completely to the other person.

 

We are saved in order to become saviors

With this we close. I would like you to bear this in mind: Put in another way it will be we are saved in order to become saviors. You may say, “Me, a savior?! Only Jesus is Savior, not me!”

In the Bible, the word “savior” is used of ordinary people like you and me. For example in 2 Kings 13:5 [NJB].

God wants to call his people to become saviors. This is one of many examples, but I will just quote this one. In “Yahweh gave Israel a savior,” the glorious word “savior” is used simply for a king of Israel who gained freedom for them from the hand of the Syrian armies.

You see the same thing in 2 Kings 14:27 [NJB].

God looks for people through whom he can save others. God saved Israel but through Jeroboam. And Jeroboam was not exactly a glorious character himself, at least in later days. He began well and ended badly like so many Christians, but God used him at that time to save Israel.

God is calling us to the same high calling to become saviors. This is a high calling. Paul said this is “the upward call.” (Phil. 3:14) Why did he say this? It’s because God has called us into the same ministry in which the Lord Jesus was engaged for the salvation of mankind. We are called upon to take up the cross, to be a savior just as he was. Only so can we follow him as his disciples.

Let us be quiet before God in prayer.