And so, this was the final major theme we found: that when a group of people, no matter how small or ordinary, was willing to die out to their selfish desires, the life which came out of that death was immeasurable, and continued to affect lives far into the future.

A slave can have life only by giving it away. "He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life." (Jesus)

Lose yourself wholly and the more you lose the more you will find.

In respect to the danger of being killed by them, it is true that whoever does go must put his life in his hand, and not consult with flesh and blood; but do not the goodness of the cause, the duties incumbent on us as the creatures of God, and Christians, and the perishing state of our fellow men, loudly call upon us to venture all and use every warrantable exertion for their benefit?

Those who in fact risk all for God will find that they have both lost all and gained all.

Because self is no longer our god, safety is no longer our concern.

John, who was transformed into a passionate lover of God, had lost everything he knew in order to come into that which he did not yet know. Oh, the cost of authentic discipleship!

Do you realize the cost they paid when they surrendered to their new Lord? No money, no job, no understandable future. They had just hurt the one person they had been trained all their lives to honor and whom they never wanted to bruise—their father. They left him to finish the fishing. They left him with no inheritance. But something in their hearts said, "Go." So they left all they knew to become something that their minds could not comprehend.

It is normal to give away a little of one's life in order not to lose it all.

Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self.

I reminded Jim of what we both knew it might mean if he went. "Well, if that's the way God wants it to be," was his calm reply. "I'm ready to die for the salvation of the Aucas." While still a student in college Jim had written: "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

We can only lose what we have first claimed.