THE EFFECT OF KNOWING THE LORD'S PRIESTLY SERVICE

THE EFFECT OF KNOWING THE LORD’S PRIESTLY SERVICE

The effect of knowing the Lord’s priestly service in the lowest or weakest place at our own side, and the highest and brightest place with God, is to draw our hearts to Him. It is not the good of heaven, as the spies could tell of the good of Canaan, but that the object of the heart is there, and therefore to that place we repair. When Mary of Bethany lost Lazarus, the Lord consoled her by His sympathy, but though Lazarus was restored and her sorrow removed, yet when it came to Christ’s own death, she does not think of her gain as to Lazarus, for she now had a greater loss. She avows that the One man — the chief — the One whom man rejects, is the first to her.... When Lazarus died her wants were increased; the little that remained was doubly valuable. But when Christ died she did not want anything here; and so the best and most valuable thing that she had she consecrates to Him. At any rate His death is more to her than the death of Lazarus. The real proof of love to Christ is that you leave the place that suits you for the place that suits Him, and where He is. It is Himself who draws you. No one else will detach us from earth.

Many would anoint the Lord as the woman in Luke 7 did, who would not bury their dignity with Him as did the one in John 12. There are few who can happily consecrate everything that would tend to give them distinction here to Christ in His death.