Being In the Center of God's Will

Below is a speech that I wrote and gave to some friends and family, that I hope will speak to your heart the way that it did mine.

              Whether you know it or not, God has a plan and a purpose for your life and the lives of everyone around you.  Now when God reveals those plans to us, we are faced with a choice.  We must decide if we are going to sit around and ignore God's will for us, or are we going to fully embrace it with a burning desire to follow God in our hearts.  Five young men were faced with this choice and the decision they made would change the lives of their families and enemies forever.

             I'd like to show you the obedience, courage, and sacrifice that was evident throughout the lifetime of Jim Elliot.  By examining Jim's life, I hope to reveal to you the importance of being in God's will, even if it means that we have to sacrifice everything.

            The problem in today's society is that people don't want anyone telling them how to live their lives.  They are comfortable where they are at and do not want that to change.  In fact, there are not many who are willing to be in the center of God's will and even less who are willing to sacrifice for it.  They do not seem to understand the full impact of what Jim Elliot said, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."  In other words, why worry about our carnal body, when it will indeed pass away, but our soul will live on forever.

               Jim Elliot was born in Portland, Oregon during the year 1927.  When he was just 6 years of age, he asked Christ into his heart and had a burning desire to serve God with his whole being.  At 18, he attended Wheaton College, where he met his future wife, Elizabeth Howard.  A few years later he was called by God to become a missionary to Ecuador.  He made the choice to follow God, and leave his fiance, Elizabeth, behind.  After a long wait Elizabeth joined him in 1953, and became his wife.  He was then assigned the fateful mission of reaching the fierce Auca tribe with the gospel.  After months of persistently dropping gifts to the tribe by plane, in order to prove that they were friends and earn their trust, Jim and four other men, Peter Fleming, Ed Mcully, Nate Saint, and Roger Youderian, decided it was time to meet the tribe face-to-face.  When Elizabeth asked him not to go because of danger, Jim simply replied, "I am called".  On January 8, 1956, Jim and his four friends were murdered by a group of Auca Indians, who had no love for outsiders, leaving behind five widows and nine children.  The outcome of these martyred lives you may ask, was that many of the Auca tribe came to believe in Christ and build friendships with the families of those five men.  Also it sparked the coming of missionaries who became determined to reach out to the lost.
             If Jim had not listened to God's call, those Auca Indians may not have come to Christ and their horrible lifestyle would have continued all of their lives.  As Jim said, "There is sheer joy of being in the will of God and the knowledge of His direction".  The Bible says in 1 John 2:17, "And the world is passing away, but he who does the will of God abides forever."  So I ask you this, "Are you in the center of God's will and would you be willing to sacrifice everything, even your very life for it?"