Elisabeth Elliot: But I don?t think God is more impressed with my standing in front of a microphone and talking to a few hundred people than He is with my standing at the sink and making soup for Lars? lunch.

Lisa Barry: Are you the same kind of person in public as you are in private? Do you volunteer for projects at your church or community, but begrudge the serving you should be doing at home? It?s a far more difficult thing to be a servant when no one is watching, isn?t it? But today Elisabeth Elliot is going to reveal that a true servant serves without the thought of compensation or praise. That?s a standard that Jesus set when He was on earth, and one we can all learn from. Let?s learn more about true servanthood as we head back to the Billy Graham Conference Center, where Elisabeth has been speaking for the last few weeks. This is Lisa Barry, inviting you to stay with us for this Tuesday edition of Gateway to Joy.

Elisabeth Elliot: In I Kings 17 we have the story of the widow of Zarephath. Elijah, you know, had been by the brook Cherith and fed by ravens. The Lord told him that he was no longer going to be fed by ravens, but he was going to be sent to a widow in a place called Zarephath. The Lord said, "I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food."

Can you imagine, when the brook dries up and the ravens have gone, going to the most destitute kind of a person in those days? There was no one more destitute than a widow. Yet God sends the prophet to this widow to receive food. So he went there.

When he got there, he saw this widow gathering sticks. He called out and he said, "Would you bring me a little water in a jar so that I may have a drink?" As she was going to get it, he called, "And bring me please a piece of bread."

"As surely as the Lord your God lives," she replied, "I don?t have any bread, only a little handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I?m gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die."

Elijah said to her, "Don?t be afraid. Go home and do as you?ve said. But first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me. Then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ?The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord gives rain on the land.?"

She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family, for the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.

She had nothing. She was destitute, but she gave what she had and God abundantly blessed her as a result. It?s a principle of exchange, and I think of it as a circle. Jesus Christ died on the cross. He reaches down to us with His love, and He lifts us up from the miry clay. In thanksgiving, we offer back our thanksgiving to Him. Then He begins to give us the continual privilege of receiving and giving, receiving and giving.

I want my own life to be a constant, unbroken offering. It doesn?t make any difference whether I?m peeling potatoes or onions at the kitchen sink or sitting at my computer and writing a book. I so often see that wistful look in women?s faces. They come up and say, "It must just be wonderful to write books and do all these wonderful things that the Lord has given you to do."

Of course, I?m not going to tell you that it?s not wonderful. It is a tremendous privilege. It?s unimagined and I?m grateful. But I don?t think God is more impressed with my standing in front of a microphone and talking to a few hundred people than He is with my standing at the sink and making soup for Lars' lunch, provided those are the things that God has assigned to me for that particular moment or hour.

Anything, everything, is meant to be an offering to Jesus Christ. I want my life to be an offering. We are not our own. We are bought with a price. The world is constantly telling you, "Be your own person. Do your own thing. If it feels good, do it. Don?t let anybody tell you what you can do and what you can?t do."

We have a neighbor who has been very difficult to live with for all the people in our little cul-de-sac. He has made it very clear. He said, "I?m come from the north end of Boston and I have never had anybody tell me what I can do and what I can?t do. I?m coming through." He has decided that he is going to cut a swath. He is supposed to go out that way from his driveway, but he wants to go out this way through our driveway. As I said, ours is cul-de-sac there. There are about six houses. He just decided that his house was going to be number seven, no matter what anybody thought about it.

This attitude of "I?m going to do my thing"?I want to do God?s thing, and I want my life to be an offering. I?m sure that that would be the case with all of us. Paul said, "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."

The Bible says, "Christ offered Himself in obedience to God." What did He have to offer? His body. He asks you and me to make a living sacrifice. Paul said, "I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is an act of spiritual worship."

I only have one body. It happens to be tall, white, female, Anglo-Saxon and aged. I didn?t have a thing to do with any of those things. No choices whatsoever. But I can choose to offer this one and only body to Jesus Christ. So that is what God is asking of us. He offered Himself in obedience to God; He suffers in me and He asks me to offer my body back to the Father. The Bible says, "He poured out His soul unto death." So I united myself to Him as I pour out my soul in Him and for Him.

My sufferings, whatever they be, of whatever nature, of whatever volume, they are material for sacrifice. This is one of the principles that I?ve tried to get across to these young people, who are being taught such a load of garbage from the world about sexuality. You know?"Do your own thing. Don?t let anybody tell you what to do. If it feels good, do it, etc." I want to get across to them that this body is not mine to dispose of. It is God?s. I have no right to use it in a way which is contrary to what God has told me. So I make that sacrifice and offer this body to God.

That?s what Jim Elliot pointed out to me when, shortly after we had discovered that each of us loved the other and Jim had confessed his love for me?I never did tell him that I loved him until he had told me that he was ready to marry me. But we were in an agony over the fact that I was graduating. I was going probably to Africa and he was not graduating for another year. I lived in New Jersey. He lived in Oregon. He was going to South America.

So we presented our bodies to Jesus Christ and said, "Lord, do anything You want with us. If it?s Your will to bring us together, that would be wonderful. If it?s not, help us to see that that?s wonderful, too."

But there was suffering involved. It meant the relinquishment of our personal preferences and desires. God repeats that requirement again and again in our lives, doesn?t He? He asks us to make sacrifices, offerings. That?s what a sacrifice is. My sufferings became a part of my sacrifice as an offering to God to give back to Him who gave it to me. Here?s this circle again. It?s God who gave me life. I have the privilege, because of what He has given me, to give back something to Him.

If what He has given me today is to scrub the kitchen floor or wash the windows, then that is meant to be an offering. It is not a lesser offering, dare I say it, than even the offering that we?ve heard from this grand piano. That?s a tremendous talent that God has given to Linda, and Linda offers it to us in the name of Christ.

Christ suffers in me, and I suffer in Christ. He offered Himself in obedience to God, which meant the tearing of His body and the nails and the crown of thorns and the derisions. He poured out His soul unto death.

Psalm 51:17 says, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart He will not despise."

It was when my second husband was dying of cancer that this became a powerful, liberating principle in my life, as though many of you know who have gone through someone who has cancer or some of you who yourselves have cancer. You know what it?s like when you wake up and what, Amy Carmichael used to call, "The worst times when all life?s molehills become mountains"?those hours between 2:00 and 4:00 in the morning. If you wake up at those hours, you just lie there, just thinking of all the hideous possibilities that may be in store for you. It becomes only possible to maintain any kind of equilibrium spiritually.

I was in agony over the things which the doctors were predicting that they might have to do to my husband before he died. I thought death couldn?t be much worse. I?d rather they just leave him alone. I can?t bear all these hideous things that they were predicting.

One night as I was lying there, I just simply said to the Lord, "I don?t have anything left to offer to You, except my fear and my pain." The Lord brought to my mind the verse from Psalm 51:17: "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart." If that?s what you have, that is what you offer?material for sacrifice.

Lisa Barry: What a powerful close to today?s program. It reinforces for me the impact that Gateway to Joy is having in all of our lives. This program has been on the air for ten years now, and we?d like to share some of its highlights with you through our anniversary book entitled GATEWAY TO JOY. It?s a commemorative book that you?ll cherish forever.

There are a limited number available, so call now. 1-800-759-4JOY. Or you can write to Gateway to Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. If you?re on the Internet, be sure and check out our Web site. You?ll find our online product catalog, weekly program topics, transcripts and much more. The address again is gatewaytojoy.org. Today?s program has been a production of Back to the Bible.

We?ll learn more about the sufferings of Christ and what they mean for us on the next Gateway to Joy.