We began with a discussion on the irony of Availability and Diligence studies garnering attendance of less the 1/3 and 1/2 of the invitees, respectfully. If there's an intention to be there, and you miss the mark, check out the Blog Archive for September, Week 3 and Week 4. It's a message worth repeating, especially in light of how it's a cyclical, if not consistent, challenge.
I. subject
Isaiah 6:5-8 Addresses how we fall woefully short of perfection, yet, by grace, can have a use in the kingdom. Here am I. Take me.
This is a great example of what Mr. Henrichson pointed out as factor one in availability;
1. The Volunteer Spirit.
followed by;
2. Free from Entanglement. See 2 Tim 2:3-4 and Proverbs 22:7
3. Freedom from Sin
4. Training. See 1 Chron 12 -- this is the book-end to the volunteer spirit. Eagerness doesn't equal availability. Your preparation, your equipping, is a key element.
II. object
To whom are we making ourselves available? Maybe it's obvious that it's to God -- to God's will. Maybe Paul had it easy. Acts 9, he's confronted. His subsequent submission seems like a pretty obvious choice.
But, how do you determine God's will for you? Of course, there's the Word. Firmly placed at the head, 1 Cor 12 , is Christ. Easy, right? But the reference isn't to a disembodied head. The head implies that the body of Christ and its various spiritual leads -- think fruit of the spirit to get a manifold view of the way of leadership -- manifest the will of God, too. The body's doing what the head wills.
2 Cor 8:5 and Acts 6 each present spirtual leaders as executors of God's will.
III. verb
So, what's up? Mr. Henrichson suggests that nothing erodes availability like a feeling of your own importance.
It's relatively simple to understand being God's servant. How are we doing at serving the body -- at our willingness to be treated like a servant, albeit not called one, when it's coming from the body and not the head?
4 comments:
You've taken Ezra 7:10 to new heights Bro James. Great stuff and hope it spreads like fire. Ciao.
My biggest takeaway on AVAILABILITY is it must be anchored to a godly set of priorities, the first and foremost being the Master. If I live Matthew 6:33 today, then tonight I can enjoy the sweet sleep of the righteous man.
p.s. I'm not really all that anonymous - Bill
BORDEN OF YALE LEFT A FAMILY FORTUNE AND DIED EN ROUTE TO THE MISSION FIELD.
AVAILABILITY TO GOD MEANS ON HIS TERMS. IT MEANS HE WILL DO WITH YOU WHAT HE WANTS. IF HE WANTS TO BURY YOU EN ROUTE TO THE MISSION FIELD THAT IS HIS PEROGATIVE.
READ ON . . . .
No Reserves.
No Retreats.
No Regrets.
In 1904 William Borden graduated from a Chicago high school. As heir to the Borden Dairy estate, he was already a millionaire. For his high school graduation present, his parents gave 16-year-old Borden a trip around the world. As the young man traveled through Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, he felt a growing burden for the world's hurting people. Finally, Bill Borden wrote home to say, "I'm going to give my life to prepare for the mission field."
One friend expressed surprise that he was "throwing himself away as a missionary."
In response, Bill wrote two words in the back of his Bible: "No reserves."
Even though young Borden was wealthy, he arrived on the campus of Yale University in 1905 trying to look like just one more freshman. Very quickly, however, Borden's classmates noticed something unusual about him and it wasn't his money. One of them wrote: "He came to college far ahead, spiritually, of any of us. He had already given his heart in full surrender to Christ and had really done it. We who were his classmates learned to lean on him and find in him a strength that was solid as a rock, just because of this settled purpose and consecration."
During his college years, Bill Borden made one entry in his personal journal that defined what his classmates were seeing in him. That entry said simply: "Say 'no' to self and 'yes' to Jesus every time."
Borden's first disappointment at Yale came when the university president spoke on the students' need of "having a fixed purpose." After hearing that speech, Borden wrote: "He neglected to say what our purpose should be, and where we should get the ability to persevere and the strength to resist temptations."2 Surveying the Yale faculty and much of the student body, Borden lamented what he saw as the end result of this empty philosophy: moral weakness and sin-ruined lives.
During his first semester at Yale, Borden started something that would transform campus life. One of his friends described how it happened: "It was well on in the first term when Bill and I began to pray together in the morning before breakfast. I cannot say positively whose suggestion it was, but I feel sure it must have originated with Bill. We had been meeting only a short time when a third student joined us and soon after a fourth. The time was spent in prayer after a brief reading of Scripture. Bill's handling of Scripture was helpful. . . . He would read to us from the Bible, show us something that God had promised and then proceed to claim the promise with assurance."
Borden's small morning prayer group gave birth to a movement that spread across the campus. By the end of his first year, 150 freshman were meeting for weekly Bible study and prayer. By the time Bill Borden was a senior, one thousand of Yale's 1,300 students were meeting in such groups.
Borden made it his habit to seek out the most "incorrigible" students and try to bring them to salvation. "In his sophomore year we organized Bible study groups and divided up the class of 300 or more, each man interested taking a certain number, so that all might, if possible, be reached. The names were gone over one by one, and the question asked, 'Who will take this person?' When it came to someone thought to be a hard proposition, there would be an ominous pause. Nobody wanted the responsibility. Then Bill's voice would be heard, 'Put him down to me.'"
Borden's outreach ministry was not confined to the Yale campus. He cared about widows and orphans and cripples. He rescued drunks from the streets of New Haven. To rehabilitate them, he founded the Yale Hope Mission. One of his friends wrote that he "might often be found in the lower parts of the city at night, on the street, in a cheap lodging house or some restaurant to which he had taken a poor hungry fellow to feed him, seeking to lead men to Christ."
Borden's missionary call narrowed to the Muslim Kansu people in China. Once that goal was in sight, Borden never wavered. He also inspired his classmates to consider missionary service. One of them said: "He certainly was one of the strongest characters I have ever known, and he put backbone into the rest of us at college. There was real iron in him, and I always felt he was of the stuff martyrs were made of, and heroic missionaries of more modern times."
"Although he was a millionaire, Bill seemed to realize always that he must be about his Father's business, and not wasting time in the pursuit of amusement." Although Borden refused to join a fraternity, "he did more with his classmates in his senior year than ever before." He presided over the huge student missionary conference held at Yale and served as president of the honor society Phi Beta Kappa.
Upon graduation from Yale, Borden turned down some high paying job offers. In his Bible, he wrote two more words: "No retreats."
William Borden went on to graduate work at Princeton Seminary in New Jersey. When he finished his studies at Princeton, he sailed for China. Because he was hoping to work with Muslims, he stopped first in Egypt to study Arabic. While there, he contracted spinal meningitis. Within a month, 25-year-old William Borden was dead.
When news William Whiting Borden's death was cabled back to the U.S., the story was carried by nearly every American newspaper. "A wave of sorrow went round the world . . . Borden not only gave (away) his wealth, but himself, in a way so joyous and natural that it (seemed) a privilege rather than a sacrifice" wrote Mary Taylor in her introduction to his biography.
Was Borden's untimly death a waste? Not in God's plan. Prior to his death, Borden had written two more words in his Bible.
Underneath the words "No reserves" and "No retreats," he had written: "No regrets."
Portions reprinted from Daily Bread, December 31, 1988, and The Yale Standard, Fall 1970 edition.
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