Sacrifice Our Life?
The short excerpt is by Tim Keller, and the Scripture is Romans 12:1 Therefore,I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God which is your spiritual act of worship.
June 30th 1859 Charles Blondin, the famous aerial French tightrope walker, stretched a rope across the Niagara Falls and walked across it with a crowd of 10,000 people watching. He and his manager, Harry Colcord, promised them a bigger stunt every week. The crowds grew, and one week he went across with a sack on his head. Another week he bicycled across. Another time he put in a stove with a fire in it in a wheelbarrow. He took it out to the middle and he made himself an omelet and ate it and came back. One time he stood on his head, and another time he did somersaults.
It was getting near the end of the summer, and he said that he had to do something to get the biggest crowd of all, so he came up with an idea. I'll carry a man across on my back. They announced that Blondin was going to carry a man across the Niagara Falls on his back, and 100,000 people came this last time. First, however, they had to find someone who was willing to do it. They advertised in the paper and said that $1000 would be paid to any man who will come and be recruited to go across. $1000 was a lot of money and a lot of people showed up for the recruitment trial. They had to find the ones that weren't too big, and finally they had a whole slew of them that they thought would be possible candidates. Blundin went out on the rope and carried a 200-pound sack to prove that there was no problem with him doing this feat. Then he came back and went down the line, and he asked this question to all of the candidates. Do you believe that without a doubt that I can carry you across? One after the other said, "Absolutely, no doubts." Then he went down the line and asked, "Will you let me carry you across the Niagara Falls on the rope?" Every one of them one by one said, "Not on your life!"
Our problem is not just intellectual, but it is this. Are we willing to sacrifice our life?
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