....furthermore, I count everything as loss compared
to the possession of the priceless privilege--the
overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth
and supreme advantage--of knowing Christ Jesus
my Lord...(Philippines 3:8, amp)
Many people want the glory without the cross, and
the shining light without the burning fire, but
crucifixion comes before coronation.
The gory of tomorrow is rooted in the drudgery of
today.
Have you heard the tale of the aloe plant,
Away in the sunny clime?
By humble growth of a hundred years
It reaches its blooming time;
And then a wondrous bud at its crown
Breaks into a thousand flowers;
This floral queen, in its blooming seen,
Is the pride of the tropical bowers,
But the flower to the plant is sacrifice,
For it blooms but once, and dies.
Have you further heard of the aloe plant,
That grows in the sunny clime?
How every one of its thousand flowers,
As they drop in the blooming time,
Is an infant plant that fastens its roots
In the place where it falls on the ground,
And as fast as they drop from the dying stem,
Grow lively and lovely all around?
By dying, it liveth a thousandfold
In the young that spring from the death of old.
Have you heard the tale of the pelican,
The Arab's Gimel el Bahr,
that lives in the African solitudes,
Where the birds that live lonely are?
Have you heard how it loves its tender young,
And cares and toils for their good,
It brings them water from mountains far,
And fishes the seas for their food.
In famine it feeds them--what love can devise!
The blood of its bosom--and feeding them, dies.
Have you heard this tale--the best of them all--
The tale of the Holy and True,
He dies , but His life, in untold souls
Lives on in the world anew;
His seed prevails, and is filling the earth,
As the stars fill the sky above.
He taught us to yield up the love of life,
For the sake of love.
His deaths our life, His loss is our gain;
The joy for the tear, the peace for the pain.
(Streams in the Desert)
Reader, we as Christians gain--through loss.