DEVOTION TO THE SAVIOUR, BUT REFUSING THE CROSS
DEVOTION TO THE SAVIOUR, BUT REFUSING THE CROSS
It is one thing to stand up unto death for a great One who has won your heart and in whom your heart rests, and quite another thing to go in and co-operate with an admiring heart in full unison with Him when all His greatness is laid aside. David dances before the ark as one with the people, and Michal, who had rescued him in the hour of danger at her own peril, despises him in her heart; he is doubtless before her in quite another aspect; her heart is subjected to a terrible test and she fails; and one feels — at least, I do — sorry for her. I believe it is a great test to every one of us, some may be prepared for it — forewarned, but I think others are rather surprised at this test to the full devotion of their heart to Christ. You would die for Him and defend Him against all comers, yet you find it trying beyond measure to you to give up every royal thing here, and assume the motto of being ‘viler still’ — to rejoice with Christ in the commonality, humanly speaking, in which the fellowship and joy of the Spirit places us, as an outré company, outside of everything humanly great and interesting — outside everything befitting the king in the eyes of the king’s daughter!
If you could in your heart accept and delight in the social, unworldly David as you do in the royal, heroic David, you would be not only brilliant as a saint, but [p. 199] your own brightness would be a cheer to yourself and a testimony to others; and you would reach it if you would press your heart to what is due to personal affection, namely, to delight in David wherever or in whatever position He may be. It betrays a strange trait in the heart to love the mighty in danger unto death, and yet to despise that self-same one when socially making himself first and foremost in divine joy with his fellows — identifying himself with his people. This is just what the Lord Jesus has done, and what we in His footsteps must do, if our hearts be fully given to Him. They must cross the barrier of nature, and flow only in the channels in which His heart flows. The Lord lead you to it is the prayer of one who earnestly seeks your welfare.