FOLLOWING CHRIST: { LOSING YOUR LIFE FOR HIS SAKE$ } - [ CHAPTER 1 ] - THE NECESSITY OF FOLLOWING CHRIST:
Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
{ MATTHEW 4:19 }
You cannot have Christ if you will not serve Him. If you take Christ, you must take Him in all His qualities. You must not simply take Him as a Friend, but you must also take Him as your Master. If you are to become his disciple, you must also become His servant. I hope that no one fights against that truth. It is certainly one of our greatest delights on earth to serve our Lord, and this is to be our joyful vocation even in heaven itself: His servants shall serve Him: and they shall see His face { REVELATION 22:3--4 }. This thought also enters into our idea of salvation. To be saved means that we are rescued from the slavery of sin and brought into the delightful liberty of the servants of God. We can sincerely pray: "O Master, You are such a glorious Lord that serving You is perfect freedom and sweetest rest! You have told us that it would be so, and we have found it so."
[ PT. 2 ] - Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto you your souls
( MATTHEW 11:29 ). We do find this to be true. It is not as though rest were a separate thing from service, for the very service itself becomes rest to our souls. I do not know how some of us would have any rest on earth if we could not live our daily lives in the service of Christ. The rest that we see in heaven is never to be pictured as idleness or boredom, but as constantly being permitted to have the high privilege of serving the Lord. Learn from this, then, all of you who would like to have Christ your Savior, that you must be willing to serve Him.
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