Christian Living
Larry Lilly's Letter Monday October 12, 2009
As I drove along a country road the other day I saw a hand printed sign proclaiming in the boldest scrawl, "WHITE ELEPHANT SALE." The house by the side of the road was tiny, so I wondered "where do they keep the White Elephants and why just white ones?"
The Great Blonde who so many times over the last 45 years has donned her Messianic cloak, came to my rescue with the wisdom that has made her great. "Larry, a White Elephant sale means they are trying to sell junk that they cannot give away. It was usually given to them by someone who bought it on sale or was given to the giver."
Now you know.
Later in the day as I browsed through Gordon McDonald's devotional book, "Generosity" I was captivated by his history of "White Elephants." Gordon Writes:
"In ancient days, when the King of Siam had an enemy he wanted to torment and destroy, he would send that enemy a very unique gift: a white elephant; a live, albino elephant. These animals were considered sacred in the culture of that day, so the recipient of the elephant had no choice but to intentionally care for the gift. This elephant would take an inordinate amount of the enemy's time, resources, energy and finances. Over time, the enemy would destroy himself because of the extremely burdensome process of caring for the white elephant."
He goes on to suggest that Satan may have duped Western Christians into accepting greed, disguised as a sacred white elephant of wealth. This White Elephant of greed is often camouflaged as enhancing our self image.
It is observable that most inner conflicts come down to a battle between the claims of Christ and those of Self. The so called modern gift of the Self is in continuous conflict with the plain assertions of Christ relative to His rights by purchase on our entire life. The Self insists that the only Just claim Christ has on our Self is a few minutes on Sunday morning unless we need Him during the week and we will let Him know. I checked and He still insisting in Luke 9:23:
"And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me."
Larry Lilly Copyright © 2009 Use with credit
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