John Paton, Jim Elliot, and C. T. Studd all illustrate one fundamental truth: your life is free to be radical when you see death as reward. This is the essence of what Jesus taught in Matthew 10, and I believe it is the key to taking back your faith from the American dream.
The key is realizing—and believing—that this world is not your home. If you and I ever hope to free our lives from worldly desires, worldly thinking, worldly pleasures, worldly dreams, worldly ideals, worldly values, worldly ambitions, and worldly acclaim, then we must focus our lives on another world. Though you and I live in the United States of America now, we must fix our attention on “a better country—a heavenly one.”22 Though you and I find ourselves surrounded by the lure of temporary pleasure, we must fasten our affections on the one who promises eternal treasure that will never spoil or fade. If your life or my life is going to count on earth, we must start by concentrating on heaven. For then, and only then, will you and I be free to take radical risk, knowing that what awaits us is radical reward.
Genessa Wells was a young woman fresh out of college with all the potential in the world. With many opportunities before her, she decided to go to the Middle East among people who had never heard the gospel. Before she went, Genessa wrote to her friends, “I could give up [on going overseas] and get married and become a music teacher. All of this is very noble and to be quite honest, sounds good to me! But in my heart, I want to change my world—more than I want a husband and more than I want comfort. I need… to tell others about Jesus.”
Genessa wound up working among the Egyptians, with Palestinians in refugee camps in Jordan, with Muslims in France, and with Bedouins in the desert.
Following all this, she wrote, “I honestly would not want to be anywhere else but here, where God has put me. He gives me more than I can imagine.” Six months later, in her last e-mail home, she wrote, “It seems that everything we do comes down to one thing: His glory. I pray that all our lives reflect that.”
Two weeks after she wrote these words, Genessa Wells died in a bus accident in the predawn darkness of Egypt’s Sinai desert.23
Most people in our culture look upon this story as a tragedy. A young woman spending the last days of her life in the remote Egyptian desert, only to die in a bus accident. Think of all the potential she had. Think of all she could have accomplished. Think of all she could have done if she had not gone there.
The perspective of Christ is much different. According to Matthew 10, the story of Genessa Wells is not a story of tragedy but a story of reward.
Reward? How can a young woman’s dying in the desert on the other side of the world be a reward?
Here’s how. In the instant after Genessa Wells breathed her last breath in Egypt’s Sinai Desert, she was ushered into the presence of Christ. There she glimpsed his glory in an amazing beauty that you and I cannot even begin to fathom. And do you know where Genessa Wells is today? She is in the same place. Do you know where Genessa Wells will be ten billion years from now? In the same place, beholding the great glory of her God and experiencing a reward that comes to those who believe that to live is Christ and to die is gain. Rest assured, Genessa does not regret missing one moment of the American dream in light of the reward she now experiences.
This, we remember, is the great reward of the gospel: God himself. When we risk our lives to run after Christ, we discover the safety that is found only in his sovereignty, the security that is found only in his love, and the satisfaction that is found only in his presence. This is the eternally great reward, and we would be foolish to settle for anything less.
When we consider the promises of Christ, risking everything we are and everything we have for his sake is no longer a matter of sacrifice. It’s just common sense. Following Christ is not sacrificial as much as it is smart. Jim Elliot once said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
Radical obedience to Christ is not easy; it is dangerous. It is not smooth sailing aboard a luxury liner; it is sacrificial duty aboard a troop carrier. It’s not comfort, not health, not wealth, and not prosperity in this world. Radical obedience to Christ risks losing all these things. But in the end, such risk finds its reward in Christ. And he is more than enough for us.