"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."
"How much do you owe my master?" Luke 16:5
There is not a greater debtor in the universe than the believer in Jesus. The natural man owes God much--ten thousand talents--but the renewed man owes God ten thousand times more--a debt of love, gratitude, and service such as the highest number cannot compute, or the longest eternity pay. It is very salutary to keep constantly in mind our indebtedness to Christ. We are prone to forget it. We are tempted at times to imagine that, some little service of love, or act of obedience, or season of suffering, has cancelled, in some degree, the immense obligation we are under to God; no, more, we are even tempted to cherish the delusion that, by this very sacrifice on our part of self-denying service and endurance of suffering, we have actually made the Lord Himself our debtor! But this will not always be the reflection of a truly spiritual mind and Christ-loving heart; of one who, in view of what Jesus has done for him--the hell from whence he is ransomed, and the heaven to which he is raised, exclaims–
"Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all."
We owe Jesus supreme, obedient, and self-denying love. Oh, if there is a being in the universe whom it were no exaggeration of affection to love with every throb of our hearts, it is JESUS. This supreme concentration of love on one object implies no rupture of tie, or lessening of affection towards others. There is a self-love, natural and proper; there is conjugal love, holy and deep; there is parental love, tender and enduring; and there is filial love, God-commanded and God-honored--all these bonds of affection may exist in harmony with a supreme love to Jesus, which, while it recognizes and hallows them, towers above, transcends, and out-shines them as the sun the inferior planets which revolve around it, their center.
We owe Jesus unwearied service. True religion is practical. The grace of God in the heart is diffusive. Divine love in the soul is constraining. The service of Christ, to which our grateful love binds us, is perfect freedom and a supreme delight. Are you, my soul, devoting yourself to the service of your Lord, who consecrated His whole life, yes, Himself for you? Are you lending a loving, sympathizing, helping hand to His ministers--vindicating, encouraging, aiding them? Are you seeking the conversion of souls, and thus aiding to increase His kingdom? What are you doing for Jesus?
We owe Jesus our talents, time, and substance. If we recognize the fact that we are not our own proprietors, then it follows that there was nothing exaggerated in the entire devotion of the early Christians, of whom it is recorded, "No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own." Yes! we are not our own, but Christ's; and if we withhold from Him our one talent, burying it in the earth; our time, frittering it away in the mere baubles and trifles of life; our property, lavishing it in self-indulgence, we are robbing Christ of what by right of creation, redemption, and vow of consecration belongs to Him, proving ourselves to be unfaithful stewards. Can we ever do or suffer too much for Him who paid all our great debt of obedience, and suffering, and death both to law and justice, that we might go free? Oh no! My soul! how "much owe you unto my Lord?" Lord! I owe You my talents, my rank, my wealth, my time, my all!--body, soul, and spirit, through time and through eternity.
"When this passing world is done,
When has sunk yon glowing sun,
When we stand with Christ above,
Looking o'er life's tale of love;
Then, Lord, shall I fully know–
Not until then--how much I owe.
"When I stand before the throne,
Dressed in beauty not my own;
When I see You as You art,
Serve You with unsinning heart;
Then, Lord, shall I fully know–
Not until then--how much I owe."
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