The Service of
Passionate Devotion
"
Do you love Me? . . . Tend My sheep"
(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 are 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…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!" – and 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 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 -- 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" -- it will spring up
and change the entire landscape (John 12:24).
Taken from My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers. copyright 1935 by Dodd Mead &
“Then He (Jesus) said to them
all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross
daily and follow me.”
Luke 9:23