August 31, 2008

• "For we which live are always
  delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might
  be made manifest in our mortal flesh."  II Corinthians 4:11 (KJV)
  
  

  The Rupture of Self by Elisabeth Elliot
  

  Sometimes our prayers are for deliverance from conditions which are morally
  indispensable--that is, conditions which are absolutely necessary to our
  redemption. God does not grant us those requests. He will not because He loves
  us with a pure and implacable purpose: that Christ be formed in us. If Christ
  is to live in my heart, if his life is to be lived in me, I will not be able to
  contain Him. The self, small and hard and resisting as a nut, will have to be
  ruptured. My own purposes and desires and hopes will have to at times be
  exploded. The rupture of the self is death, but out of death comes life. The
  acorn must rupture if an oak tree is to grow.

  It will help us to remember, when we do not receive the answer we hoped for,
  that it is morally necessary, morally indispensable, that some of our prayers
  be denied, "that the life of Jesus may be plainly seen in these bodies of
  ours" (2 Cor 4:11 JBP). Then think of this: the agonized prayer of Jesus
  in the garden went unanswered, too. Why? In order that life--our life--might
  spring forth from death--his death.
  

  This devotional is used with permission by the author. It may be used
  solely for personal, noncommercial, and informational purposes

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