The Other Side

Colin Richards

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies f God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Romans 12:1 

And after that shall the Levites go in to do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation: and thou shalt cleanse the, and offer them for an offering. For they are wholly given unto me from among the children of Israel. Numbers 8:15-16


There is no sound on earth that can compare for pathos to the desperate cry of a mother to God. As fathers, we love. But there is a divinely imparted connection between mother and child that transcends the male sensibility. There is a possession. For a mother to relinquish a child to the scythe o death means tearing, and ripping, and rending. So it was on one occasion when a mother rolled around in her mind the brooding possibility that her child would succumb. It seemed that God was bent on separating them, so the choice to give away was perhaps easier than for others, but not really. The transaction she entered upon was as binding as any sworn oath before men, and more so for having been made to God. "Lord, if you'll save him, I'll give him to you." It was done, at least on her side, and the rending gave way to healing. The tearing gave way to mending, and God ultimately brought health to a sick little boy, and salvation to a lost little family.

It is one thing to be given and another thing to give yourself. I never knew my mother's arrangement with God until years later, after I made my own transaction. I think that was good, since God was free to do the prodding without interference When I at last gave way, I thought that "surrendering " to serve the Lord with my whole life was the end. The rest would be light on the hills and walks through the woods, and the joys of ministry. But I have come to appreciate, in some small measure, that a living sacrifice is, nonetheless, still a sacrifice. Sacrifices are consumed, and then the only things worth keeping, "the fragrance," ascends to god. There is a giving away, and then a dying, and then the altar, and then there is the fire. all are absolutely necessary for an acceptable presentation to God, and all are completely reasonable. We know the fire is most difficult, but only if the sacrifice has not died first. But the fire, a symbol of the Spirit's consuming presence, is also glorious.

The "living" sacrifice stays on the altar for a lifetime so that its fragrance never stops ascending. The giving away never stops and neither does the dying. The consecrated believer is always consecrating, always presenting, always yielding, and always burning. I think one envisions himself as a "choice servant of God" when he first steps into the sacrificial depths of consecrated living, only to discover that he has now just become "acceptable." But "acceptable" is perfect, because it lets Christ be the only one who is Wonderful. In this daily life of surrender, there is light on the hills, and walking through the woods with the Savior, and the joy of His presence alone.

A Broken Spirit~Colin Richards

How hard can it be to plant an apple tree? You dig a hole, and you stick in the tree. Well, not exactly. This spring my mother-in-law bought us two lovely apple trees for our yard. I promised my son with much sincerity that I would plant them, but, as with many things, time marched on, and on, and on. Eventually the ravages of summer heat and drought converted the little parcel of ground where I intended to plant them into a veritable parking lot. I would not be daunted. My son watched as blow after frustrating, humiliating, debilitating blow struck the impenetrable earth. First an inch, then two, then three…and finally, we made two holes of sufficient size. With a complete absence of Spiritfilling and a few grumbling words under my breath to boot, I plopped the trees into their places and scraped the football- sized clumps of unbroken earth back into the holes. They didn’t have a chance. My conscientious son watered the trees regularly, but the stream from the hose merely flowed around the adamantine mounds. One tree seemed committed to survival despite the odds, but our two toothy labs took care of him, too. Every time we look out the window, Kaye Dee and I have to laugh at the little stump that wanted to be an apple tree.

God, however, is not amused with hard ground. Ground which lies fallow eventually becomes hard, unyielding, and covered over with stubbly vegetation fit only for grazing. As believers, our lives are meant to be fruitful fields, yielding rich and ever increasing harvests of the fruit of the Spirit from year to year. As I look back over the landscape of my life, it is with a sense of sorrow that I acknowledge that some portions have been fit for nothing but grazing. I was good for the religious platitude, but whose life was really being changed because of my influence? Whose soul was being saved because of my words? Whose life was being rendered more fruitful because of my example?

Let them be as the grass upon the
housetops, which withereth before it
groweth up. Psalm 129:6

A wise planter breaks up his fallow ground with all the might he can muster, and lays a course for the seed to fall in the most fertile places. As stewards of the Lord’s fields, we must also take the harrow to the impenetrable soil around our hearts. We must take the Word as “a hammer, that breaketh the rock in pieces,” and let fly at every stubborn stone in our life-fields. The breaking process is a joint effort between us and God. He supplies the tools, and we deliver the blows. He reveals the rocks, and we dig them up. We search for Him, and He searches us.

Search me, O God, and know my
heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
And see if there be any wicked way in
me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Psalm 139:23-24

It is so easy to object that with all the business of tending to life, there’s just not time to work over the ground of our lives through prayer, confession and repentance. But we will discover, on the other side, that it was God’s intent all along to “come and rain righteousness” on the soil of our lives and bring a glorious crop by His Spirit, if only we had cultivated a broken spirit to receive it.