Gratitude to the Redeemer for the inestimable benefits he has procured for us, should excite us to seek the things which are Jesus Christ's in preference to our own. Even Christ, we are told, 'pleased not himself' (Rom. 15:3). He sought not his own things, but the glory of his heavenly Father, and the happiness of his people. He 'became poor, that we, through his poverty, might be rich' (II Cor. 8:9): he emptied himself of his glory, though possessed of all the fullness of the Godhead, took upon him the degraded form of a servant, submitted to shame and sufferings, and death itself, that he might deliver us from endless inconceivable misery, and raise us to the possession of immortal glory and blessedness. In this view, how astonishing is the history of Christ's personal ministry! Well might it be said of him, that the zeal of God's house had eaten him up (John 2:17); for it was his food and drink to do the will of his heavenly Father, and to finish his work (John 4:34).
Often did he deny himself the ordinary refreshments of nature, that he might be serviceable to the souls of men. Upon one occasion, when faint and weary, he sat on Jacob's well, and asked of the woman of Samaria a little water to quench his thirst; denied, as he was at first, this trifling blessing, he seems, from the conversation that follows, to have forgotten his thirst in his ardent concern for the salvation of this poor woman's soul (John 4:9-26). And once and again we read of his retiring to a mountain to pray, and spending whole nights in prayer, after having employed the day in public instruction and acts of beneficence (Mark 6:40, Luke 6:12).
What a pattern to his followers! And how powerful a motive likewise to deny ourselves for him, who, for our sakes, labored, and watched, and wept, and prayed, and at last shed his precious blood! How poor the returns which we can possibly make for his marvelous love to us! But surely, if one spark of gratitude remain in our breasts, we cannot fail to judge with the apostle, that "Christ's love compels us, since we have reached this conclusion: if One died for all, then all died. And He died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the One who died for them and was raised." (2 Corinthians 5:14-15)
We must be irresistibly led by this endearing consideration to seek the things which are Jesus Christ's, accounting the honor of his name, and the advancement of his kingdom in the world, of infinitely greater consequence, and far more desirable than any little separate interest of our own. Said the captive Jews in Babylon, "If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not exalt Jerusalem as my greatest joy!" (Psalm 137:4-6). In like manner will the pious Christian say, "If ever I forget your dying love, O bleeding Immanuel! if ever I lose the sense of my infinite obligations to your matchless grace, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth! Sooner let me die than not live to you; sooner let me lose the powers of my rational nature, than fail to employ them in your service. Henceforth your glory shall be my constant aim; your will my only rule; and the advancement of your kingdom, in the particular station in which they providence has placed me, the great business of my life."
Nourish, my Christian friends, such sentiments as these. Muse upon the great things which God has done for your souls, until the fire of divine love burn within you, and you feel yourselves constrained to say, "Lord, what will you have us to do — to be — or to suffer? We are ready, through your all-powerful grace assisting us, not to be bound only, but also to die for the name of the Lord Jesus (Acts 21:13). We are ready to renounce kindred, country, friends, comforts — everything, in short, which the world holds dear, at the command of him whose we are, and to whom we owe our everlasting all. Only let the grace of Christ be sufficient, and his strength made perfect in our weakness, and love will make pain easy, and labor delightful."
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