Place Everything on the Altar of God

Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it." (Luke 9:23,24—NIV)

If we are to survive spiritually in the coming days of trouble we must place every relationship, every circumstance, and every thing we possess on the altar of God.

Notice the phrase "deny himself," in the above verse. This is one of the secrets of the victorious Christian life.

The American culture teaches us that we deserve to have everything we desire and to have no trouble along with it. I have never heard a television advertisement proclaim we are to deny ourselves in order to please Jesus Christ.

In other words, the concept of deliberately denying ourselves something we want fervently is anathema to the American ideal.

This means if we are to be a genuine Christian we must go against the values of our social group. We have to be different.

Much Christian literature of our day tells us how to get what we want. These books often are popular and make considerable money for the author.

How many Christian books of our day tell us if we are to enter the Kingdom of God we must deny ourselves?

You know, we are dealing with two difference entities. One entity is the Christian religion. The other entity is the Christian discipleship. These are not the same at all and their respective values often are quite different.

One can be a member of the Christian religion for his or her entire lifetime and never become a disciple. Since in the New Testament the terms "Christian" and "disciple" are absolute synonyms, we can say that one can be a member of the Christian religion for his or her lifetime and never become a Christian.

The very starting point of becoming a Christian is to declare we have left everything to follow Jesus. There is no other starting point. There are other starting points for the Christian religion but none for the Christian discipleship.

After our clear declaration that we have left everything to follow Jesus we are to be baptized in water as a sign we have died with Christ on the cross and have been resurrected with Him and have ascended with Him to the right hand of the Father.

This is how we begin the Christian life. We can’t slide into it, we have to come to God and tell Him we are determined to lose our life in Him and save it in Him.

We can see there are not as many Christians in America as one might wish—numerous church members but not that many Christians.

After we take this first basic step of salvation, we must spend the rest of our life working out our salvation with fear and trembling. Our fear is that we will come short of the Glory of God; short of the rest of God’s perfect will; short of that for which we have been grasped by the Lord.

A major aspect of our discipleship is that of God removing our idols from us and placing them under our feet.

It is so easy to make a good start and then to not bear lasting fruit because we were sidetracked along the way!

It is a race and we must run it to win. If we do not, we may not continue to live a victorious Christian life in the coming hour of darkness.

The disciple must "take up his cross daily and follow me." He must deny his most fervent desires and ambitions and take up his cross each day and follow the living Lord Jesus.

What is your cross? It is that which you desire desperately and cannot have without breaking God’s laws. It is that situation you detest but cannot escape without breaking God’s laws, without going against the Lord’s will.

There is no way in which we are going to emerge victorious and be able to help others in the days to come unless we are willing to set aside our own life to do God’s will. There is no other way! If you try to get around your cross, God Himself will send a powerful delusion on you. This is what the Scripture states. You did not receive the love of the truth!

"For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it."

Much Christian literature of our day deals with physical survival in the day of trouble. No doubt these books will help some. But we must remember that if we place our main emphasis on saving our life we will lose it. We need to be more concerned with pleasing God than with keeping ourselves and our family alive, although this may sound harsh to the believer who has been imbued with humanistic values.

Paradoxically, if we are willing to lose our life for Christ and His Gospel we will succeed in saving our own life, the lives of our loved ones, and the lives of those who hear us. But if we cling to our own life we stand to lose everything.

The ways of God are as high above us as the heavens are high above the earth.

"Father, we do not always understand You but we trust You."

If God asks for our possessions, our talents, our home, our family, our health, our life, we are to yield the treasure to Him. Anything we are unwilling to give to God is an idol and is keeping us in bondage, although we may not realize this.

When we love a person, circumstance, or thing more than we do God we are breaking the first and most important commandment.

"You shall have no other gods before me." (Exodus 20:3—NIV)

If we love our family more than we do Christ we are not worthy of Christ.

"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; And anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me." (Matthew 10:37,38—NIV)

There was a man who trusted in his possessions to save him, just as numerous Americans trust in money to secure their future.

Then he said, "This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, 'You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry."’ But God said to him, "You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?" This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God. (Luke 12:18-21—NIV)

When a man works to guard himself against being deprived in the future, he should first make certain he is doing God’s will. For he does not know whether he will see the light of another day.

If we are rich toward God we are prepared for every eventuality. But if we are not rich toward God, we should remember we are only a few heartbeats from eternity.

Two years ago I was in an ambulance racing toward a hospital. I was on my back on a stretcher, having a heart attack.

My emotions were mixed. I was concerned for the welfare of my family. But what a wonderful feeling to know I was right with God, and if I were to go to God at that moment, I would hear "Well done, good and faithful servant"; and my family would be taken care of by the Lord in a much better fashion than I ever could were I to remain alive.

Let me tell you, when you are facing death, all that matters is how it stands between you and God. Nothing else is of equal importance.

We may be approaching war in America. If so, the streets may run with blood. Should this prove to be true, we want to be sure we are obeying Christ.

The earthquake comes or the bomb drops. We are caught miles away from our family. The roads are blocked. The telephone lines are down. People all around us are screaming in panic.

If we have been serving God with all our might, having laid down our life that His will might be done, we can be confident our family will be taken care of one way or the other (maybe brought up to Paradise to be with Jesus!) and we ourselves, should we die, will go to be with the Lord and with them. What a marvelous insurance and assurance to have!

But let us say God has reminded us time and time again that we have been putting off doing His will. Suddenly the disaster strikes. There is no time to repent. Our life and the lives of our loved ones are at stake. Our children do not know the Lord because we have not been setting the right kind of example. We have been too busy enjoying the many interesting aspects of the American culture.

Now where are we? Maybe downtown without our family. Are they dead? Are they wounded? Will God take care of them even though I have been careless? Do I have any passage of the Scriptures that comforts me with the thought that even though I have not served the Lord He will take care of my family anyway? Do I have any scriptural basis for this hope?

Would harm come to my beautiful little daughter? Harm came to many beautiful little daughters in Yugoslavia recently. On what scriptural basis would God make an exception for me?

The Bible says if we dwell in the secret place of God’s perfect will, no plague will come near our house. But what if we have not been doing God’s will, not abiding in Christ as we should? What then?

And what about ourselves in the hour that is likely to arrive? What will we hear from Jesus Christ? It may be, "Depart from Me, you lazy slave, you did not use the talent I gave you. Angels, place this man in the darkness away from My Presence."

"But I accepted Christ years ago!" Friend, the outer darkness is not for unbelievers but for careless, unfaithful servants of the Lord!

"Will I ever see my family again?" Who knows? You were not faithful to God. Maybe He will give your family to someone who has been more diligent with the things God gave him.

I am not making all this up. This is the reality of the future. Best read the Scriptures for yourself and see if I have overemphasized the danger we all are facing if we do not lay down our life for Christ and God, placing everything on the altar of God that He may do with us, and with that which belongs to us, as He pleases.

If we are to survive spiritually in the coming days we must set aside a specific time for prayer on a daily basis.

If we are to survive spiritually in the coming days we must continually meditate in the Scriptures, memorizing them, finding out what God has promised, studying them to determine if our faith is founded on the Scriptures or merely on the traditions of our group.

If we are to survive spiritually in the coming days we must place everything on the altar of God. We must deny ourselves, take up our personal cross, dwell in our personal prison, and follow Jesus diligently and faithfully until He releases us. We must put our treasures in Heaven, not on the earth where they can be ruined or removed from us.

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