"Doctor Livingstone, I presume?"

I first heard the words in an old Nintendo game - old-school, eight-bit Nintendo. Remember those days? I think I may have been seven years old.

Unfortunately, Henry Stanley's famous quote was all I knew (and I think it's all most of us know) about David Livingstone.

At least this was the case until two weeks ago when the story of the 19th-century Scottish m-worker to Africa became a focal point and a challenging example for my parents and I as we each had some big decisions to make concerning our future service to the Lord. At what cost? was our question - and I think it's one we all ask when we know He's asking us to step off that boat.

Check out the story yourself. Here's a clip my mom and I both stumbled upon on separate occasions in the same week - she in Toronto, I in Taipei. In it Ravi Zacharias shares a clear, brief and moving biography of Livingstone. Just 8 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OV5US78BFg

I don't assume to post this man's bio glibly. I know his is a life not easily imitated. But Livingstone modeled Christ, who knew the most costly sacrifice when he left his Father's side to live among men. And so I believe the intrepid Scotsman understood well the promise Christ made in Mk 10:29-30 and experienced the accompanying joy.

"I tell you the truth," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life."

Our use of the word "sacrifice" is put into perspective when we see the promise of "better possessions and lasting ones" as David Livingstone did (Heb 10:34). What a privilege it is to live for Christ!

Let goods and kindred go,
This mortal life also!
The body they may kill -
God's truth abideth still.
His kingdom is forever!
- "A Mighty Fortress is Our God," Martin Luther

Therefore, brothers, in view of God's mercy, offer your bodies as living sacrifices...