DEVOTEDNESS IS NOT EXPLOIT
DEVOTEDNESS IS NOT EXPLOIT
It is a very blessed thing when the heart can be without distraction, caring “for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord” (1 Corinthians 7: 32); the one occupation and the one motive then comprise his life, caring for the things of the Lord, and this that he may please the Lord. The heart is devoted to Him without any distraction, nothing even lawfully claiming one’s time or diverting one’s thoughts from Him, caring only for the things of the Lord, having no other things to interest one, but devoted to them, because they are His - and all to please Him. The shepherd’s dog will lay himself down beside the coat of his master, and remain [p. 117] there for hours; he will endure cold and hunger, but leave the coat he will not, till he to whom it belongs returns to claim it. He cares for his master’s things, and all his thought is to please his master. It may not appear to be much, but the fact that it is his master’s is quite enough. It is not a question whether it is the most useful service. If a hare or a deer passed by, the faithful dog would not leave the coat. No thought of how much better it would be to the master to have a hare or a deer can divert the dog from his charge. The hare or the deer may pass by within his grasp, but he will not desert the coat, he clings to that which is his master’s in his absence. This is what is so much wanted in this day. There is not that simple devotedness of heart which cares for the things of the Lord because they are His, and with the full sense that they are His, as the dog knows his master’s coat. Nothing could persuade the dog that the coat was not his master’s, and be it a good one or the reverse, the one charm of it is that it is his master’s, and all his other feelings and interests are in abeyance to his caring for it. Many an earnest one now is looking more for a hare or deer; that is, to do some great exploit, something that one thinks must draw forth the commendation of the Lord, than that interest of heart only known to him who possesses it; which leads one to know what is really His, and, because His, to endure everything in order to tend or care for it. The dog knows his master’s coat by scent. The devoted man knows the things of the Lord by intimacy with Him. Intimate affection always knows what belongs, what is peculiar to the loved one and it cares for it to please Him. The more suffering in the case, the more the heart enjoys the motive which makes it care; and hence it is not that it cares where there is no suffering, but it is more bent on the care as the suffering increases. For example, the dog in shelter or on a bright day would not be as conscious of the devotion that was in him to his master [p. 118] as he would be on a dark wintry night when the robber might attempt to steal away his charge. How finely in the latter case does his devotion to his master come out! Just so, the heart that knows Christ’s things and has been entrusted with any part of them as a charge from Himself, enjoys itself in its devotion as the suffering in caring for it increases. It is told of a traveller in a great desert, exhausted from want of water, and at length having reached it, he supplied the company before himself, though he was the first to come up to it. This is the devotedness to Christ’s things that becomes us, enduring loss and privation ourselves in order that we may save others; not seeking to distinguish ourselves, or to obtain a reputation for our services as a known one. Women are especially favoured in having this service, they can visit and tend in a way men cannot. To our Lord they ministered, like Abigail to David when Nabal would not. It is, the more one thinks of it, an incomparable service, that the Lord’s things should be one’s care here; things one has learnt in intimacy with Himself, that they are His and that He would have us to care for them; and we do so heartily, because it will please Him.
You will remark that it is the one thus thoroughly devoted to Christ who always has an ear for the greatest and highest thing you can tell him of Christ. The taste is for everything of Christ, that is ruling taste (passion if you like). The ambitious man could not get too much power; the covetous man could not get too much money; the spiritual man could not hear anything too great or too high of his place with Christ. The more thoroughly devoted I am to Him here, suffering for Him, despised and unknown, in my increasing care for His things, the more does my heart rejoice in the height and perfection which belong to me in Him outside this scene. The one who is pre-occupied with any kind of religious distinction here is proportionately indifferent to the heights of perfection in the coming kingdom; but the [p. 119] one who is mole-like, toiling on here with the one single cheer, even to care for the Master’s things in order to please Him, always turns to the future, and knows truly that Christ in him is the hope of glory. Be devoted, and do not offer to the Lord that which costs you nothing.