I LOVE this from Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest"!
Service Of Passionate Devotion
Lovest thou Me?…Feed My sheep. — John 21:16
Jesus did not say — Make converts to your way of thinking, but look
after My sheep, see that they get nourished in the knowledge of Me. We count as
service what we do in the way of Christian work; Jesus Christ calls service
what we are to Him, not what we do for Him. Discipleship is based on devotion
to Jesus Christ, not on adherence to a belief or a creed. “If any man come to
Me and hate not…, he cannot be My disciple.” There is no argument and no
compulsion, but simply — “If you would be My disciple, you must be devoted to
Me.” A man touched by the Spirit of God suddenly says — “Now I see Who Jesus
is,” and that is the source of devotion.
To-day we have substituted credal belief for personal belief, and that
is why so many are devoted to causes and so few devoted to Jesus Christ. People
do not want to be devoted to Jesus, but only to the cause He started. Jesus
Christ is a source of deep offence to the educated mind of to-day that does not
want Him in any other way than as a Comrade. Our Lord’s first obedience was to
the will of His Father, not to the needs of men; the saving of men was the
natural outcome of His obedience to the Father. If I am devoted to the cause of
humanity only, I will soon be exhausted and come to the place where my love will
falter; but if I love Jesus Christ personally and passionately, I can serve
humanity though men treat me as a door-mat. The secret of a disciple’s life is
devotion to Jesus Christ, and the characteristic of the life is its
unobtrusiveness. It is like a corn of wheat, which falls into the ground and
dies, but presently it will spring up and alter the whole landscape (John
12:24).
This is SO true! Being a disciple of JESUS means being devoted to HIM< and desiring to know HIM more! THIS line is especially true of so many in the church today!
To-day we have substituted credal belief for personal belief, and that is why so many are devoted to causes and so few devoted to Jesus Christ.
Our sole responsibility as a member of the family of God is to love the Lord our God with everything within us, and to love our neighbors as ourselves! How do we do that? By being devoted completely to JESUS, and then loving people! Love people enough to tell them the hard things, but do it in love and patience! AMEN! Here is Hillsong with "One Thing", which is exactly Who JESUS should be to us!
Shalom in Him!
