Tag: Love

Sweet Surrender

A.B. Simpsonby A.B. Simpson

The people shall be [a freewill offering] in the day of thy power —Psalm 110:3

This is what the term consecration properly means. It is the voluntary or self-offering of the heart, by the constraint of love, to be the Lord’s. Its glad expression is, I am my beloved’s (Song of Solomon 6:3).

Surrender must spring, of course, from faith. There must be the full confidence that we are safe in this abandonment, that we are not falling over a precipice or surrendering ourselves to the hands of a judge but we are sinking into a Father’s arms and stepping into an infinite inheritance!

It is an infinite privilege to be permitted to relinquish ourselves to One who pledges Himself to make us all that we would love to be, yes, all that His infinite wisdom, power and love will delight to accomplish in us. It is the clay yielding itself to the potter’s hands that it may be shaped into a vessel of honor meet for the Master’s use. It is the poor street waif consenting to become the child of a prince in order that he may be educated, provided for and prepared to inherit all the wealth of his guardian.

by A.B. Simpson

The Conditions of Discipleship

Oswald Chambersby Oswald Chambers

If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also….And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me….So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple. —Luke 14:26-27, 33

If the closest relationships of a disciple’s life conflict with the claims of Jesus Christ, then our Lord requires instant obedience to Himself. Discipleship means personal, passionate devotion to a Person— our Lord Jesus Christ. There is a vast difference between devotion to a person and devotion to principles or to a cause. Our Lord never proclaimed a cause— He proclaimed personal devotion to Himself. To be a disciple is to be a devoted bondservant motivated by love for the Lord Jesus. Many of us who call ourselves Christians are not truly devoted to Jesus Christ. No one on earth has this passionate love for the Lord Jesus unless the Holy Spirit has given it to him. We may admire, respect, and revere Him, but we cannot love Him on our own. The only One who truly loves the Lord Jesus is the Holy Spirit, and it is He who has “poured out in our hearts” the very “love of God” (Romans 5:5). Whenever the Holy Spirit sees an opportunity to glorify Jesus through you, He will take your entire being and set you ablaze with glowing devotion to Jesus Christ.

The Christian life is a life characterized by true and spontaneous creativity. Consequently, a disciple is subject to the same charge that was leveled against Jesus Christ, namely, the charge of inconsistency. But Jesus Christ was always consistent in His relationship to God, and a Christian must be consistent in his relationship to the life of the Son of God in him, not consistent to strict, unyielding doctrines. People pour themselves into their own doctrines, and God has to blast them out of their preconceived ideas before they can become devoted to Jesus Christ.

by Oswald Chambers