Illustration results for Self-sacrifice
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"At a certain moment, a doctor will determine that my brain has ceased to function and that, for all intents and purposes, my life has stopped. When that happens, do not attempt to instill artificial life into my body by the use of a machine. And don’t call this my "deathbed." Call it my "bed of life," and let my body be taken from it to help others lead fuller lives.
"Give my sight to someone who has never seen a sunrise, a baby’s face or love in the eyes of another. Give my heart to a person whose own heart has caused nothing but endless days of pain. Give my blood to the teenager who has been pulled from the wreckage of his car, so that he might live to see his grandchildren play. Give my kidneys to one who depends on a machine to exist from week to week. Take my bones, every muscle, every fiber and nerve so that someday a speechless boy will shout at the crack of a bat and a deaf girl will hear the sound of rain against her windows.
"Burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow. If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my weaknesses and all my prejudice against my other humans. Give my sins to the Devil. Give my soul to God. If, by chance, you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you.
COMPROMISE AND ANTI-CHRIST
Religious tolerance is not always a sign of good will. It can be a sign of careless, perhaps hypocritical religious indifference of the most high-handed philosophic relativism. It can also be a mask behind which to hide downright malice. During the Nazi era, for example, arguments for Christian openness to other perspectives were used by German Christians in an attempt to neuter the church’s protest against the neo-paganism of Hitler and his minions. The Confessing Church in Germany found in John 10 a theological basis to stand against Hitler. There are times in which the only way to keep alive the non-vindictive, nonjudgmental, self-sacrificing witness of Jesus Christ is to stand with rude dogmatism on the rock that is Jesus Christ, condemning all compromise as the work of the Antichrist.
SOURCE: Ronald Goetz in "Exclusivistic Universality" (Christian Century, April 21, 1993). Sep00
SIR HENRY TAYLOR IS QUOTED AS SAYING, "HE WHO GIVES WHAT HE WOULD AS READILY THROW AWAY, GIVES WITHOUT GENEROSITY; FOR THE ESSENCE OF GENEROSITY IS IN SELF-SACRIFICE." I RECENTLY READ SOMEWHERE THAT THE AVERAGE BABY BOOMER GIVES TO THE CHURCH ABOUT WHAT HE WOULD SPEND ON A MOVIE TICKET. $7 IS NOT BAD OFFERING IF IT IS A SACRIFICE. HOWEVER IF WE GIVE $7 LIKE WE WOULD BUY A MOVIE TICKET OR A COUPLE OF HAMBURGERS, THEN WE ARE NOT BEING GENEROUS.
From Gene Edwards’ Sermon: Why Giving is Teamwork!!
I was reading this week in the little devotional book “This Day with the Master” by Dennis Kinlaw and I read the devotional for April 27th. I would like to share this with you this morning. In Ephesians 5:1-2 we are told to “be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love.”
“One day as I was reading through the book of Ephesians, I found myself laughing aloud when I came across Ephesians 5:1, “Be imitators of God.” How can someone like me imitate God? Many of His attributes immediately came into my mind. First of all, He is the omnipotent One. A few in history have tried to be all-powerful, but they have ended up as fools. Second, He is the omniscient One. He knows all things. But when I am in the process of finding an answer to a question, I discover that I have tem more questions, and so my experience is one of exploding ignorance, not knowledge. The more I know, the more I have to learn. Third, He is the omnipresent One. But I am confined to one moment in time and one point in space. How can I imitate Him?
I looked again at the passage: “And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.” (Ephesians 5:2) My laughter faded when I realized that God wants us to imitate His lifestyle, not His attributes. What Paul was telling the church to imitate was the life of love that issues in self-sacrifice modeled in the Lord Jesus.
Suddenly I found myself confronted not with divine attributes in abstraction, but with the very Cross of Christ. Then I realized that Paul was asking us to imitate the God we see on Calvary, the God who cares more for so...
Leo Thorsness was from Walnut Grove, Minnesota and fought in the war in Vietnam. He was a Major, U.S. Air Force, in the 357th Tactical Fighter Squadron. His bravery occurred over North Vietnam on April 19, 1967. He received his Medal of Honor from President Richard Nixon, on October 15, 1973.
His official citation was for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. As pilot of an F-105 aircraft, Lieutenant Colonel Thorsness was on a surface-to-air missile suppression mission over North Vietnam. Lieutenant Colonel Thorsness and his wingman attacked and silenced a surface-to-air missile site with air-to-ground missiles and then destroyed a second surface-to-air missile site with bombs.
In tile attack on the second missile site, Lieutenant Colonel Thorsness’ wingman was shot down by intensive antiaircraft fire, and the two crewmembers abandoned their aircraft.
Lieutenant Colonel Thorsness circled the descending parachutes to keep the crew members in sight and relay their position to the Search and Rescue Center. During this maneuver, a MIG-17 was sighted in the area. Lieutenant Colonel Thorsness immediately initiated an attack and destroyed the MIG. Because his aircraft was low on fuel, he was forced to depart the area in search of a tanker.
Upon being advised that two helicopters were orbiting over the downed crew’s position and that there were hostile MIGs in the area posing a serious threat to the helicopters, Lieutenant Colonel Thorsness, despite his low fuel condition, decided to return alone
through a hostile environment of surface-to-air missile and anti-aircraft defenses to the downed crew’s position. As he approached the area, he spotted four MIG-17 aircraft and immediately initiated an attack on the MIGs, damaging one and driving the others away from the rescue scene. When it became apparent that an aircraft in the area was critically
low on fuel and the crew would have to abandon the aircraft unless they could reach a tanker, Lieutenant Colonel Thorsness, although critically short on fuel himself, helped to avert further possible loss of life and a friendly aircraft by recovering at a forward operating base, thus allowing the aircraft in emergency fuel condition to refuel safely.
Lieutenant Colonel Thorsness’ extraordinary heroism, self-sacrifice and personal bravery involving conspicuous risk of life were in the highest traditions of the military service, and have reflected great credit upon himself and the U.S. Air Force.
"Peace comes only from loving, from mutual self-sacrifice and self-forgetfulness."
"The world will never have lasting peace so long as men reserve for war the finest human qualities. Peace, no less than war, requires idealism and self-sacrifice and a righteous and dynamic faith."
I am reminded of the guy who shows up at heaven’s gates. Peter asks him, “Did you do anything self-sacrificing or noteworthy to show that you loved God and loved others.”
“Well,” he replied, “There was one thing. I saw an old lady that was being taunted and ridiculed and physically abused by a group of gangbangers. So, without thinking, I ran up to them and yelled, ‘Have you no shame? Leave her alone.’ Then I went right up to the largest guy who looked like Goliath with arms the size of trees and tattoos decorating his entire body and told him that they ha...
WIERSBE ON SELF-SACRIFICE
"Self-preservation is the first law of physical life,
but self-sacrifice is the first law of spiritual life."
--Warren Wiersbe
Warren Wiersbe:
"Self-preservation is the first law of physical life,
but self-sacrifice is the first law of spiritual life."
