Brown's Daily Word 6-16-09

Good morning,
Praise the Lord for this new day. Praise the Lord for His Kingdom, eternal and triumphant. Praise the Lord that the Good News of Jesus Christ, our Lord, turns the world right side up and upside down.
I read an extraordinary story of self sacrifice. In Ernest Gordon’s true account of life in a World War II Japanese prison camp, "Through the Valley of the Kwai". It is about a man who through giving it all away literally transformed a whole camp of soldiers. The man’s name was Angus McGillivray, a Scottish prisoner in one of the camps filled with Americans, Australians, and Britons who had helped build the infamous bridge over the River Kwai. The camp had become an ugly place where a dog-eat-dog mentality had set in. Allies would literally steal from each other and cheat each other; men would sleep on their packs and yet have them stolen from under their heads. Survival was everything. The law of the jungle prevailed...until the news of Angus McGillivray’s death spread throughout the camp.
Rumors spread in the wake of his death. No one could believe big Angus had succumbed. He was strong, one of those whom they had expected to be the last to die. Actually, it wasn’t the fact of his death that shocked the men, but the reason he died. Finally they pieced together the true story. The Argylls (Scottish soldiers) took their buddy system very seriously. Their buddy was called their "mucker," and they believed that is was literally up to each of them to make sure their "mucker" survived. Angus’s buddy, though, was dying, and everyone had given up on him, everyone, of course, but Angus. He had made up his mind that his friend would not die. Someone had stolen his mucker’s blanket. So Angus gave him his own, telling his mucker that he had "just come across an extra one." Likewise, every mealtime, Angus would get his rations and take them to his friend, stand over him and force him to eat them, again stating that he was able to get "extra food."
Angus was going to do anything and everything to see that his buddy got what he needed to recover. But as Angus’s mucker began to recover, Angus collapsed, slumped over, and died. The doctors discovered that he had died of starvation complicated by exhaustion. He had been giving of his own food and shelter. He had given everything he had -- even his very life.
The ramifications of his acts of love and unselfishness had a startling impact on the compound. As word circulated of the reason for Angus McGillivray’s death, the feel of the camp began to change. Suddenly, men began to focus on their mates, their friends, and humanity of living beyond survival, of giving oneself away. They began to pool their talents -- one was a violin maker, another an orchestra leader, another a cabinet maker, another a professor. Soon the camp had an orchestra full of homemade instruments and a church called the "Church Without Walls" that was so powerful, so compelling, that even the Japanese guards attended. The men began a university, a hospital, and a library system. The place was transformed because one man gave all he had for his friend. (From Tim Hansel, Holy Sweat, 1987, Word Books Publisher, Page 146-147) Jesus said, "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:12). Paul says it this way, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” 2 Corinthians 8:9 The early church was a thriving, growing, vibrant community because they had learned the secret of self-sacrifice. But then they were just following the example of their Master, who gave up all. Again, it is written in 2 Corinthians 8:9, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.”
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVoajZSDdAw