As they arrived at the Islands the ship’s captain tried to turn him back, saying, “You will lose your life and the life of those with you if you go among such savages.” To which Calvert replied ‘We died before we came here.” James Calvert (1813–1892) was a missionary to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands.
***
We died before we came... we
died to ambition, goals and dreams. We died to self and everything
the self desires. We died so that Christ, and Christ alone may live
in and through us. That whatever we attempt within this great
missionary call of God, succeeds to bring Him glory... and only Him.
We died before we came so
there would be no hindrance, no barriers within ourselves to follow
Christ into areas of the world where there is great darkness yearning
for light... We died so there would be nothing to lure us back to
lives of seeming comfort, lives of our own wants, desires, dreams. We
wanted God's call... and so in order that Gods' call would blossom,
yield full baskets of fruit, acres of healthy crop... we died to all
that would stand in the way of such a harvest. For where our treasure
is, there our hearts are also... where Gods' desire, calling and work
in our lives means more to us than anything or anyone... For our
treasure is God, His kingdom and His call!
A call will 'kill' you, a
dream will coddle you. That is the difference between a call of God
and a dream of the flesh or the heart. There is a false teaching
surrounding these two things. We are told by the world to 'follow'
our hearts but the Word of God says, “The heart is deceitful
above all things and utterly wicked, who can know it? But I the lord
search the heart and mind of a man to reward him according to his
conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.” What deeds? The
deeds of 'embracing' the motivations, leanings and seductions of the
heart that lead us away from the 'call' of God and convince us that a
dream of the heart is the same thing as a call. That God wants you to
discover your 'dream' that He supposedly gave you... but God does not
give dreams, He gives 'calls'... The flesh gives dreams, not calls.
The difference between the two is how they are played out and acted
upon within our lives... the consequences on the flesh of following
the 'call' or the smooth seductive influence on the flesh from
following the 'dream' shows itself in the end to be of God or not to
be of God.
And in the end, as
Christians, we want to make sure we were following the call and not a
dream of the flesh that disguised itself in shiny raiment and smooth
words... but in essence feeds the flesh and not the Spirit. A true
call of God will 'kill' you! It will not suffer the flesh to live, it
will not feed the flesh, it will crucify the flesh. You will die on
that cross many times... The first time is when you surrender
yourself to Christ in repentance and embrace His redeeming
salvation... then life in Him will continue to lead you there so that
'dying to self' and 'living for Christ' becomes as common and
expected as breathing. The Christian should know no other way of
life... anything short of this is not real Christianity... but is a
false hope... for God will not leave you where you are and the words
“I will not change' will be driven from your lips and your heart by
the cross.
Any supposed 'dream' of God
that does not kill the ego, self, personal ambition... is not Gods'
call. It is merely the flesh feeling 'good about itself' and refusing
to die. And the stronger the call of God, the more dying needs to
take place. There must be no place for self so that the beautiful
call of God can go forth and bring forth all that God plans and
desires for His wondrous work. Because it is His work and He wants it
done His way and He knows best how to do it.
And you will go forth on
your knees, while He paves the way... and you will stay on your knees
for the rest of your life. For no great missionary work of God ever
went forth without continual sustaining prayer and continual death to
self!
