In 1857 David Livingstone gave this speech at Cambridge University: ‘People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa…Away with the word in such a view and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger now and then with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life may make us pause and cause the spirit to waver and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.’ When you serve the Lord, you always get back more than you give up. And if you get back more than you give up, have you really sacrificed anything at all? ‘Then Peter began to say to Him, “See, we have left all and followed You.” So Jesus answered and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel’s, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time – houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions – and in the age to come, eternal life”’ (Mark 10:28-30 NKJV). The only regrets you will have at the end of your life will be that you didn’t seek and serve God more and seek and serve Him sooner.

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.