SELL ALL AND FOLLOW HIM

SELL ALL AND FOLLOW HIM

I was speaking on Sunday on the passage, Mark 10 - the young man following the Lord; concluding with our Lord’s answer to Peter. I was pressing two things that no one who has anything here to trust in, however anxious he may be to do so, really trusts in Christ so as to follow Him, really able to say, ‘I long to depart and be with Him’. Riches and everything else must be found to be a “husk”, as the prodigal found, and then he found the open door to the father’s house. God will not take me while I have any regrets. But He will take me when He finds that I cannot delight in anything but Himself. This is His grace, to receive me when I have exhausted every human resource. I have thus in reality sold all. If one longs to depart and be with Christ, one has not resource in riches or in anything here. But another truth - everything that I surrender for the sake of Christ, for the ^[p. 135] sake of following Him, will be returned to me by Him a hundredfold, so that in fact I lose nothing by giving up for the Lord, but the contrary! Tell me what you have as a christian, the affection of brethren, acceptance or anything else, and then deducting ninety-nine parts from it will give me the amount you would have had had you not followed Christ, though with His gifts there be persecution.

I am sure, for instance, that I have more love from the saints than I ever surrendered by following the Lord.