Sacrifice

admin Sep 28, 2020 1785 0

SACRIFICE
Psalm 50:5

My intercom rang.
I picked up.
"Sir, you have a visitor."
It was the receptionist.
I asked her to let him in.
I was the in-house architect in a
construction company.
My friend, an architect colleague
Timothy came visiting.
We'd been friends for a decade...
He came in, we talked, shared
scriptures and prayed.
About an hour later, Timothy took
his leave.
I saw him off to the car park.

"Tim, where's your car?" I asked.
"I came with a cab", he replied.
"Ah! Car issues! I guess it's at the
mechanic's...."
Timothy's response stunned me:
"Naaa. I gave it away."
You WHAT??
"I gave it away.
We invited a pastor to come preach
in church last week.
The Holy Spirit asked me to give
him the car."
It was a BMW.
Tim left in a cab.

I went back to my office, my
mind in shock.
It took a while to process what
I just heard...
We were both single young architects,
just starting out life.
I wondered if the Holy Spirit asked
me to give away my car, I would.

It would be very inconvenient not
to be mobile in Lagos!
Imagine you have a date?
Which lady would want to date you
if you ride cabs and buses about?
These were my concerns.
But my friend, Tim gave out his one
and only car- just because the
Holy Spirit told him to!
I knew inside me I wasn't broken
to that level.
But I was challenged and provoked!
That day, my spirit shifted.

I later read a book by Dr Mike Murdock
where he wrote:
"Whatever you can walk away from,
you have mastered for life."
Timothy walked away from his car.
That area of his life was permanently settled.

This happened over 20 years ago.
Timothy and his family are in Canada now.
We spoke last nights and I brought up
that incident with him...
The irony is, in these 20 years Timothy
had given out loads of cars.
It became a tradition for him to be
giving out a few cars every year:

He'd buy cars in Canada, freight them
to Nigeria and give them away to people
as led by the Spirit.
He has become a free car-giver...
This morning, I read Psalms 41-50.
Verse 5 of chapter 50 struck me:
"Gather my saints together unto me;
those that have made a covenant
with me by sacrifice."

Here, God spoke of His SAINTS.
Then He went ahead to give a
detailed description of those He
identified as SAINTS:
Those who have made a covenant
with Him by SACRIFICE!

Not those who mount the pulpit
to preach.

Not those who wear religious robes
and carry religious titles.

Not church workers.

Those who have made a covenant
with God by SACRIFICE.

Let me ask: what can YOU walk
away from...?
Do you have possessions, or
possessions have you?
Can you walk away from them?

Jesus once asked a rich guy to go
sell all he had and come follow him.
Scripture records the guy went away, sad.

He was possessed by his possessions.
(Matthew 19:16-22)

Many of us are like this guy...
I learned very significant lessons
from Timothy that day:
Don't hold on to anything tightly.
See everything you possess as
temporary.
Be willing to give away anything-
my life is not dependent on them.
A man's life does not consist of
the abundance of his possessions.
Today, there's nothing I hold so
dear I cannot walk away from.
I don't place much value on any of
the material things I possess.