Rom 9:3 – For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:
If you only knew the pain and sufferings of a true servant of the Lord. The only thing remotely akin to it is when a lover has been jilted and totally rejected by the one whom he/she loved more than anything in the world, including self and all that he/she owned…now forsaken, rejected and unloved that very special one.
Fortunately, I’ve never had to suffer that kind of pain but the pain that the servant of God, the lover of men’s souls must suffer cannot compare to it. You would begin to understand the bursting heart of Christ as he wept over Jerusalem. No, no, you cannot understand that kind of pain.
In the natural sense, Paul was highly accomplished with a great education and promising career before him. He didn’t have to, but our scripture text it is evident that Paul suffered that kind of pain. To reach the lost, he suffered shipwreck, in peril of the sea, five times he was beaten with forty stripes, save one. He was in peril of robbers and of false brethren. Prisons did not stop him neither did hunger and severe deprivation…just driven by the pain in his heart to bring someone to the saving knowledge of Jesus, his true love. Oohh, the PAIN.
A true servant of the Lord will go before his assembled congregation and try to do his best to appeal to all who are lost without Christ in the world. He will preach the best that he can, often making up in length of preaching what is lacking in profoundest appeal. He will cajole, sometimes threaten, other times begging, often perplexed at the lack of response. Other times he may try a little subtility….:
You might hear him say, “With every eye closed and every head bowed in this very sacred moment, would there be someone here that would say, ‘Brother Strange, I’m lost would you pray for me? If you would like for me to pray for you, while every eyes is closed, will you slip up your hand?”
Then you count, “There’s one. There’s another one, here is one to my left and now one in the back. Would there be at least one more?”
He will continue, “While no one is looking around, would those of you that slipped up hand, stand and let me pray with you? “Thank you. Thank you. God sees your heart. Now while you are standing would you just slip out into the asiles, make your way to the front and let me pray for you?”
Some may be critical of that approach but I’ve learned that there is little that you can do to receive NO criticism at all. Paul said that he had spent his life reaching for the lost but now in the end, facing Nero’s chopping block
Phm 1:9 – YET FOR LOVE’S SAKE I rather beseech thee, being such an one as Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ.
For the love of the lost, he was willing to become a fool in the eyes of the world, often an embarrassment to his own family, misunderstood by his own brethren. His love drove him to yet one more and final prison. It’s easier to suffer the whippings, the many perils, rejection of friends and family, prisons and finally the severance of his head by an excutioner….yes easier to suffer those things than to watch someone walk away from Christ as tears drip off the chin of a true servant of God.
No one can quite understand the heart of a true servant of God. Yes, he will try to disguise his hurt and disappointments. How many times have I walked off the platform and told God, “No more. I’m not going to go before and unbelieving crowd of Christ rejectors and pour my heart out before them only to see them walk away and go out partying, calling it “fellowship” in a nice restaurant while I hide myself and cry my eyes out. No more. I’m done.” Yet, the true servant of God would be willing to bleed and die or whatever is needed to bring a soul to the saving experience of repentance and and obedience to the gospel according to Jn 3:5/Acts 2:38.
Jeremiah once said, “That’s IT. I’ve had it. I’m not going to prophesy anymore. I’m outta here. It seems that every time I prophesy, the very opposite happens and I become a laughing stock….I’m done.”
Only another true servant of the Lord Jesus can understand the heart of Jeremiah as it was being crushed as in a meat grinder. In every case, the burning love of the lost and for his Lord will always drive him to further unknown extremes.
Sir, if you are one of those true servants of the Lord, seldom will your own family truly understands you. Often you are an embarrassment. I can almost hear them say, “You didn’t have to crawl around on your hands and knees begging someone to come to the altar.”
That was not Paul’s attitude. He made the most extreme expression of love when he said from his heart, “ For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh…”
A true servant of our Lord Jesus Christ will not let Jesus and his early disciples suffer, as they did, while he becomes a happy-go-lucky, good times Charlie with an ego as big as the church house. No. He will hide himself away and bear the cross of suffering and shame, alone…sometimes in public too. He is willing to become the misunderstood fool for Christ sake, the off scouring of the world.
Where are those today willing to lay down their very lives and all hopes and worldly ambition that they may win an eternal soul to Jesus? In today’s world, at the mouth of the horn of cornucopia, there seems to be far too few.
With an Aching Heart,
Brother Strange
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