02/24/2025
My wife often says that I could easily have become a hermit. I have to admit that over the years I have been tempted on occasion to withdraw to a place where all I needed to survive would be food, shelter, and God. But is a monastic life the reason God called me, or sent Jesus to die for us? After much thought I concluded that I didn’t think so. Interestingly, the definitions of the words Hermit and Holy both include a separation from the world… hermits often separating themselves for religious purposes, and holy men being separated unto God for His purposes.
Oswald Chambers wrote about this during my devotional reading this morning. He reached the same conclusion that I did. Let's read an excerpt as he spoke of Jesus whom he considered to be his friend and his desire to follow His life...
"The delight of sacrifice is that I lay down my life for my Friend, not fling it away, but deliberately lay my life out for Him and His interests in other people, not for a cause. Paul spent himself for one purpose only - that he might win men to Jesus Christ." - Oswald Chambers
It would be nearly impossible to win men to Christ if we totally separated ourselves from them and lived alone in a hermit's shack on the side of a mountain, take up residence in a remote monastery, or wander about alone in a wilderness. We need to interact with the world as Jesus did in order to save souls, and we need to do this because we love Him... not just because we feel that it is our mission or something that our personal nature requires of us. Jesus needed time spent with God alone, and so do we, but God’s love for mankind demands that we reenter the world if we are to deliver the gospel and win souls. He expressed as much in conversation with God…
“I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.”
John 17:15 ESV
Paul was truly in love with Jesus, and he was overcome by Christ’s constant presence in his life; so much so that he lived in reckless abandon in regard to winning souls. Paul even spoke of giving up his own relationship with Christ if it would win others to Him. Would you, could you give up your personal relationship with Jesus Christ to save others?
“For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.”
Romans 9:3 ESV
But that didn't happen and, quite honestly, I believe such a separation would most certainly have been a death sentence for Paul. What He did instead was to change his life so that he might reach and save people. Abraham came to a similar precipice in his life when he laid his son Isaac on the altar, but God provided a ram as a substitute and didn’t require such a thing of him either.
“To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.”
1 Corinthians 9:22 ESV
When we give ourselves over to Jesus and seek to save as He did, it isn't all about the suffering. Although we will certainly suffer in our lives and efforts, there is also a blessing in it for us...
“I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.”
1 Corinthians 9:23 ESV
We are blessed when we save the lost, and the sinners. Do you remember the exhilaration of that moment when you first gave yourself to Jesus? Well, in winning a lost soul to Him we are quickened in the same way, and the blessing of that moment overcomes us once more... this is our blessing if we have done in love. Wasn’t this what motivated Jesus… love? We read of why He sacrificed for us... He even tells us why Himself:
“"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
John 15:12-13 ESV
Jesus loved.
So, the lure to lead the life of a hermit should be overcome by our relationship with Jesus. In his love we find companionship with all men and women for the purpose of salvation. Our love for Jesus will most assuredly lead us to a love for all men... and a desire to save their souls. The love of Christ overcomes any desire we might have to be alone and most certainly deals with the spirit of the hermit within us.
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for your Son Jesus Christ and the impact He has had on my life. I thank you for His leading me away from a desire for solitude and into a love for you and all those around me. Help me Lord, through the aid of your Holy Spirit, to reach out to lost sinners with the love of Christ, that I might bring them to Jesus and redemption. Let the outward and exuberant life of Jesus inspire me to reach into the world of others as He did mine, and to follow your will to its fullest... even if means following Him into suffering and death. I praise your name Father, and relish those quiet times when just the two of us speak, just as Jesus desired to be alone with you. But I know in my heart from those times comes encouragement for renewed vigor in my quest to reach out to those around me; to engage and win them for your kingdom. Strengthen me Father and remove the barriers that hide my spirit of love from the world. Let me overcome my desire to be alone with you and become the hands and words of Christ to those who need you most. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you my God who created me and placed me in the world with others and provided me with a loving woman. Holy are you who said, “man is not meant to be alone”. So I praise your name for all those you send me to with the Gospel of Jesus, and I thank you for allowing me to be alone with you in prayer and in the secret places as you appease the spirit of the hermit that still remains sequestered within me, and as you make me holy. both hermit and holy… equally set apart from others and yet set apart for your purposes. Great are you my God who is the one, and yet the many. Wonderful are you who walks with me alone beside the still waters and then returns me to the world to interact with all those you have placed there. You tell me that I am not alone... not alone in spirit, and not alone in the world. Thank you for them both and hear me as I say Amen to this prayer… the prayer of he who would have been a hermit, he who needs companionship, and yet the man that in Christ you call holy.
Amen, Amen, Amen
“Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
Genesis 2:18 ESV
“And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone,”
Matthew 14:23 ESV
“And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.””
Mark 1:35-37 ESV
“In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles:”
Luke 6:12-23 ESV
Rich Forbes