From:	VAX2::REGUINTO     "Praise the LORD our God, and worship at the Temple, His footstool. He is holy." 10-SEP-1994 22:30:45.63
To:	@CHRIST.DIS
CC:	
Subj:	God's Sacrificial Love

From:	VAX2::EATOFFEN     "The Princess has spoken." 10-SEP-1994 20:18:13.98
To:	REGUINTO
CC:	
Subj:	God's sacrificial love

This is a passage from the NO COMPROMISE book (the biography of Keith
Green by Melody Green Sievright, his wife) that I've been reading.
Let it move you in your heart as it did mine.  :)



	One night a brother from another ministry came and taught us about
God's sacrificial love. At the end of his teaching he shared a story with us.


	It seemed there was a man with the job of raising and lowering a
drawbridge so passenger trains could cross a deep canyon. This man had
one child, a son, that he loved very much. One day the little boy wandered
toward the bridge without his father noticing.
	Soon the father heard a train whistle. As he started to pull the
lever to lower the bridge, he looked out the window and saw that his son
had crawled down into the big heavy gears. If he pulled the lever his son
would be crushed!
	There were only seconds to decide. Hundreds of people would die
if he didn't lower the bridge-- all sons and daughters loved by someone.
He took a deep breath and his heart screaming with pain, he pulled the
lever.
	The bereaved father stood helplessly at the window, beating on
it with both fists and screaming out in anguish, as the train zipped
quickly over the bridge. The passengers saw him and thought he was waving
-- so they waved happily back without realizing the price that father had
just paid for them.

	When the story was over, every face looked stricken. As the
meeting was dismissed I started crying. Running out into the dark night,
I fell on my knees in the backyard with my face pressed into the grass.
I still hadn't had a "breakthrough" like all the others, but with this
story, I'd felt the heart-crushing pain of the father. In my mind's eye,
I could only see my curly-haired Josiah in those gears.
	"Oh, Lord," I cried, "please give me a clear picture of what it
cost you to send your only Son to earth. I'm so sorry for taking your
sacrifice for granted-- and for not loving you the way you deserved to be
loved. Please forgive me!"



<IX0YE><
   Richard