Don’t sell your Soul, originally uploaded by FotoRita [Allstar maniac].

“I think the Lord may be calling me to die a martyr’s death.” I told my one of my college friends.

“I’ve been thinking the same thing,” he replied.

As it turns out, many of the guys in our college group had a sense that we would give the ultimate sacrifice in service of the gospel. And we were ready.

25 years later and I’m still here. In fact, I think all of us are still here. As far as I know, none of my friends were thrown into prisons, shot in the jungle, killed in the arena. We were ready to give everything, but God called us to give something.

Jesus tells his puzzled listeners that they might just have to give up their hands, their feet, and even their eyes if they are going to follow him into the kingdom of God. What? Laying my neck on the line is one thing, but giving up something specific like an eye, a hand or even a foot is asking too much. Sometimes it is easier to die heroically than to live in humiliation.

Several years ago when I entered in dialysis, I was prepared to die. I felt a peace that if I didn’t survive God had already enclosed me in his loving grasp, and I could rest. In the mystery of His grace, I was blessed with another kidney.

In the last year, I lost a church building to a fire and a job to a sour economy. Strange as it sounds, these losses seemed far more dramatic to me than my health problems. I’m not sure I was even aware of the impact until my wife made a comment to me about dying. It seems I had been acting like I was dying again.

She saw through this and spoke to the discouragement that seemed to sap my vision and steal my laughter. I realized that I felt as though God was cutting off a foot, a hand, an eye. By inviting me into failure on multiple fronts, I experienced shame, anger, resentment, and jealously. I had begun reciting a daily litany to her of my failures.

This litany of self pity hid an unwillingness to trust in God and a resentment toward those who enjoyed the blessings I felt that God owed me. In His grace, He revealed my own unwillingness to love and my own desperate need for His grace to repent and rest in His love that flows through me to all people, including those I’d prefer to be mad at.

Sometimes He calls us to cut off the foot, the hand, the eye because they have become obstructions to love. Sometimes He simply amputates the offending limb. He removes those things that hide our hurts, our broken places, our attitudes that resist the limitless love of God. These things seem so deeply connected our lives, our ego, our identity that to lose them feels as if we’ve lost a vital limb.

In the midst of such sacrifice, we may live under the illusion that we cannot continue to live without our foot, our hand, our eye, and sadly many times we sink into depression and even bitterness. But the call of amputation (whether it’s the loss of a dream, a house, a job, and sometimes even a relationship) may just be the call of love.

Paul encouraged the saints to love for love is the fulfillment of the commandments.

Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. (Romans 13:8-10Romans 13:8-10
English: King James Version (1611) - KJV
8 Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. ⁹ For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. ¹⁰ Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.  

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But what we may fail to realize is that learning to love will not simply cost us everything, it will cost us something. The wounds of sin have damaged each of us in ways that hinder us from loving fully, completely, divinely. The trauma of living in a sin-stained world means that we will and do continue to suffer wounds. Whether acknowledged or not, these wounds are real, are painful, are deadly.

Many a successful law practice, business and even church has been built on the foundation of wounded hearts in need of healing. The success simply hides the ache. While the Pharisees appeared as the righteous leaders, Jesus accused them of being white-washed tombs. The nation of Israel appeared to be worshipping YHWH and walking in His righteousness, but Isaiah indicated otherwise.

Outwardly they appeared righteous and holy, but they were really rag-covered beggars whose hearts were far from God. We are no different from the ancient Israelites. And often the successes that define us are merely compensations for the weaknesses we feel. Our hope, our strength, our victory is in Christ alone. Outside of His great grace, all our accomplishments whither and fade and blow away into dust.

In His great and unyielding grace, He is leading us into love. Love that fulfills the commandments. Love that rests in Him. Love that restores a broken world.

In my own journey, He has used the last year to challenge me yet again and more deeply to rest in His love, to abide in the vine and to let go of offenses and hindrances to love.

Oddly, this is the martyrdom I sensed in college. It is not a fast, glorious death, but a slow, hidden death in life that forms me and makes me into a living witness, a living sacrifice of His love. As I walk out the reality of His call in my life, I am sharing my humiliations with others in hopes of encouraging someone, somewhere at some time when you also are called to let go of feet, hands and eyes.

The loss will ultimately mean that we can walk more soundly, serve more faithfully, and see more truly. This is the journey of love, the journey of living martyrs, the call of discipleship. May we all know and walk in the wonder of this love that is unceasing.

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