DEVOTEDNESS THE TEST OF GRACE AND POWER

^[p. 307] DEVOTEDNESS THE TEST OF GRACE AND POWER

Man has ruined himself, and through grace his only help is in Jesus Christ the Son of God; and as he receives light and grace, he leaves the one and cleaves to the other. There is the sense of deficiency and need in himself, and the certainty of having found in Another that which he requires. And as this double knowledge increases, so does his devotedness increase towards the One who has met his need and ruin; and without this double knowledge there can be no devotedness in man toward God, because man is a sinner and lost. The Son came into the world to seek and to save that which is lost. As I know that I am lost in my first estate, and that the Son of God has come and is my Saviour, so am I drawn to Him; I could not be otherwise. Devotedness is more a necessity than a duty. A drowning man is devoted to the lifeboat, which is his only means of safety. I am devoted to Christ as I learn, first, how He meets my need, and secondly, how superior He is to everything and every one. The heart likes to be devoted to the one who commands its affections. Thus there are two kinds of devotedness, both true, but the one greatly in advance of the other. The first, which for distinction I call the lesser devotedness, is produced by the conviction that in myself I am lost as to my state and nature, but that Christ is my Saviour. This is known in measure by every happy saint. The second, or the greater devotedness, is produced when, in addition to the knowledge that Jesus is my Saviour, I find that everything I need or could value is in Him, that He is superior to everything in myself, and that He imparts to me of Himself. As I seek Him because of this, my devotedness is of the highest order. He is more to me personally than I could be to myself. It is not only that I delight to make little of myself in ^[p. 308] order to make much of Him, which is true where there is any real devotedness; but I suffer in order to be with Him, losing myself for Him, my heart, glad of the exchange, enduring all things, counting all things but loss, that He may be my gain. It is mercy or the greatest favour — that of a Saviour to a lost sinner — which produces the lesser devotedness; but it is the knowledge of the Saviour Himself, in all His personal attractiveness, which produces the greater.

Now every happy saint is more or less characterised by the lesser devotedness. Where a soul is really assured that Christ is his Saviour — that He has given His life a ransom for him, that He has destroyed the power of the devil — then his heart is drawn to Him. The sense of rescue so fills the heart that the Saviour commands all one’s attention and delight. The Saviour has the first place; the one thought is to distinguish Him by gifts, to expend one’s possessions on Him. Like Jonathan; when he saw the head of Goliath in David’s hand, his soul was knit to the soul of David; he felt David was his saviour, and he forthwith, before all the army, stripped himself, and put all on David. We read in 1 Samuel 18: 3, 4: “Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle”. Jonathan then had no personal acquaintance with David, and we find that, though so very distinguished for the lesser devotedness, he never reached the greater devotedness; he could not suffer for and with him.

Now the woman in Luke 7 is a very remarkable example of the lesser devotedness, which she expresses in the strongest and most touching manner. She believes that Jesus is her Saviour, and, cost her what it may as to her feelings, she determines to reach Him, and to express her love to Him. At personal sacrifice she makes much of Him, and this is the mark of true devotedness.

^[p. 309] Love likes to make much of its object at its own expense. She was drawn to Him as her Saviour only; and the more she felt her sins — as with everyone — the more she thought of the Saviour, and delighted His heart in anointing His feet and making Him an object of consideration. This, as I have said, is only the lesser devotedness, though a most beautiful and striking instance of it. I do not say that she would not have reached on to the greater; but it is evident that her devotedness was produced by the sense of what Jesus was to her as a Saviour, as the Lord says of her, “Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much”; and though there is much self-sacrifice in this — the lesser devotedness — it does not go beyond a certain point. It would, as we have seen, lead a Jonathan to strip himself for David, but it would not lead him to follow David in his rejection. It is produced by the gain and benefit which the sinner receives from the Saviour, and does not go beyond a surrender of what one possesses. It is real and beautiful as far as it goes, but the expression of the heart never goes beyond the nature of the thing which has moved it, for if it did, it would not be true to itself. It is the immense, unequalled service of the Saviour to the lost one which has touched the heart of the lost one, and led it in delight to make much of Him who has from love done it such service; and the heart, in answer thereto, devotes the possessions it values to Him who is now more to it than any possession. It has reached this point, that He is better to it than anything it has hitherto owned, and therefore what it owns it devotes to Him. It is what Christ has done for us, as it was what David had done for Jonathan, which has won the heart; and the heart in return feels that He is before any other thing which it possesses, and therefore it passes the chief possession over to Him. This is the lesser devotedness, and very few get up to it fully.

Now the greater devotedness is produced by a ^[p. 310] knowledge, not only of what Christ has done, but of what He is — a personal knowledge of Himself. And in proportion as one reaches to this, there is perfect devotedness. As a sinner I could not know Him personally until I had first known Him as my Saviour. But having known Him as my Saviour, when the heart gets acquainted with Him personally, there is another kind of devotedness; not giving up of possessions merely, but a giving up of oneself, the heart delighting to be with Him; and though it be only through suffering, it prefers the path of suffering with Him to any other. It is really fellowship with His sufferings, because there is no other path here. It is a widely different thing which produces this kind of devotedness.

Knowledge of the greatest service which could be rendered to me produces the first; knowledge of the heart and ways of the greatest Person, the One who has rendered the service, produces the other. There is nothing really satisfying to the heart but the knowledge of a heart full of the deepest and truest interest, while perfect and holy in all its tenderness and care; and this we find only in Christ. The Son of God has walked here as a Man, and made Himself familiar with every trial and difficulty which a godly one could encounter here. And as my heart gets acquainted with Him, as I see the perfection of His life, the depth of His interests and love in the holy manner of all His ways, and the supreme beauty of His movements in everything, my heart turns with delight to Him, boasts in Him as the one perfect Man before God, hastens to refuse and repudiate everything of the man and the scene here where He was refused, and knows no joy, values no possessions but Himself. All else is dross. To have Him as gain is the one only thought and interest of the devoted saint. In the lesser devotedness it is one’s own possessions which are surrendered as the expression of devotedness; but in the greater devotedness, the one thought is to possess Him, and for this self with ^[p. 311] everything is surrendered. In the one case I have received the greatest and I return my greatest. In the other I abandon everything of time. I leave myself and the earth, to possess Him who in Himself captivates and commands the affections of my heart. The lesser looks to my own side to give to Him; the greater looks to Him to supplant everything on my own side. The greater is not produced by knowing only what Christ had done. It cannot be without knowing what He is. Nothing but association and intimacy with Him personally can lead into this. He comes to my side and walks with me in my sorrow, as He did with Mary; and until He does this, whatever one may hear of Him or read of Him, one can never know the tenderness or the nature of His heart. Unless one has been in the depth of sorrow and death-darkness, one cannot know the touching expression of His love, or what He is at a moment when no one else can even come near me. To know Him there — His step, His tears, His sympathy, the greatest the companion of the weakest, His heart told out in my sorrow — binds my heart to Him in a way that acquaintance with Him in joy never could. And hence, like Mary, the social scene at Bethany (John 12: 1), though an unequalled one on earth, is overlooked by her, and she passes to what is before Him. She would bear Him company; she anoints His body for the burial — she connects everything with His tomb. The best and most beautiful things here detain her not; they have lost all interest for her. In act as well as in spirit, she suffers with Him. The shadow of His death rests on everything, and she follows Him to the tomb. “Against the day of my burying hath she kept this”, It is not surrendering things merely, but all that makes life charming is waived, and with the thing most fragrant to her here; she would accompany Him to the tomb. It is with Himself that she is interested, not merely with the benefit she has received from Him. True, it was the assured and deepened ^[p. 312] knowledge of this which bound her heart to Him first, but then it is a greater thing when His own personal excellence binds and directs the heart and its actions, It was thus Ruth followed Naomi, not when there was anything to gain by accompanying her, but when all was lost, to be a fellow-pilgrim of one who now exchanges the name Naomi for Marah. Ruth could gain nothing for herself, save the simple, peculiar satisfaction of being with the one she loved. This alone satisfies the heart of the truly devoted one, and this is devotedness of the highest order. This is its mark — a readiness to suffer anything in order to secure personal company. “Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried”, In the lesser devotedness one does everything ostensibly to make Christ known as the one thief Object of the heart. In the greater devotedness the heart seeks nearness to Him, and to be in His path, whatever it may be, no matter, so that He is there. It is not in order that it may give to Him, but that it may sit under His shadow with great delight — in a word, that He may be the “gain”. The one gives up valued things to distinguish Him as the Object; the other abandons everything, endures every sacrifice to be in company with Him, to win Him. The first assuredly can grow into the other, but the measure of our grace is declared as we are in either.