The Service of
Passionate Devotion
Do you love Me?...Tend My
sheep. ¡X John 21:16
Jesus did not
say to make converts to your way of thinking, but He said to look after His
sheep, to see that they get nourished in the knowledge of Him. We consider what
we do in the way of Christian work as service, yet Jesus Christ calls service
to be what we are to Him, not what we do for Him. Discipleship is
based solely on devotion to Jesus Christ, not on following after a particular
belief or doctrine. ¡§If anyone comes to Me and does
not hate¡K, he cannot be My disciple¡¨ (Luke 14:26). In this verse, there is no
argument and no pressure from Jesus to follow Him; He is simply saying, in
effect, ¡§If you want to be My disciple, you must be
devoted solely to Me.¡¨ A person touched by the Spirit of God suddenly says,
¡§Now I see who Jesus is!¡¨¡X that is the source of
devotion.
Today we have
substituted doctrinal belief for personal belief, and that is why so many
people are devoted to causes and so few are devoted to Jesus Christ. People do
not really want to be devoted to Jesus, but only to the cause He started. Jesus
Christ is deeply offensive to the educated minds of today, to those who only
want Him to be their Friend, and who are unwilling to accept Him in any other
way. Our Lord¡¦s primary obedience was to the will of His Father, not to the
needs of people¡X the saving of people was the natural outcome of His obedience
to the Father. If I am devoted solely to the cause of humanity, I will soon be
exhausted and come to the point where my love will waver and stumble. But if I
love Jesus Christ personally and passionately, I can serve humanity, even
though people may treat me like a ¡§doormat.¡¨ The secret of a disciple¡¦s life is
devotion to Jesus Christ, and the characteristic of that life is its seeming
insignificance and its meekness. Yet it is like a grain of wheat that ¡§falls
into the ground and dies¡¨¡X it will spring up and change the entire landscape (John 12:24).
(Taken from Oswald Chambers ¡V ¡§My Utmost
for His Highest¡¨ June 19)