The spring and source of all true devotedness is divine love filling and operating in our hearts, as Paul says: “The love of Christ constraineth us” (2 Cor. 5:14). Its form and character must be drawn from Christ’s actions. Hence, grace must first be known for oneself, for thus it is that I know love and that this love is shed abroad in the heart. We learn divine love in divine redemption.
The First Effect
The first effect of love is to lead the heart up, thus sanctifying it. We bless God, adore God, thus known; our adoring delight is in Jesus. But thus near to God and in communion with Him, consciously united to Christ by the Holy Spirit, divine love flows into and through our hearts. We become animated by it through our enjoyment of it. It is really “God dwelling in us,” as John expresses it; “His love shed abroad in our hearts,” as Paul says. It flows thus forth as it did in Christ. Its objects and motives are as in Him, save that He Himself comes in as revealing it. It is the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord; not the less God, but God revealed in Christ, for there we have learned love. Thus, in all true devotedness, Christ is the first and governing object; next, “His own which are in the world,” and then our fellow-men: first their souls, then their bodies, and every need they are in. His life of good to man governs ours, but His death governs the heart. “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us” (1 John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)). “The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them, and rose again” (2 Cor. 5:14-15).
Love Toward Others
We must note, too, that it is a new life in us which both enjoys God and to which His love is precious, which alone is capable of delighting in the blessedness that is in Him, and in which His divine love operates towards others. It is not the benevolence of nature, but the activity of divine love in the new man. Its genuineness is thus tested, because Christ has necessarily the first place with this nature, and its working is in that estimate of right and wrong which the new man alone has and of which Christ is the measure and motive. “Not as we hoped,” says Paul (it was more than he hoped), speaking of active charity, “but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God” (2 Cor. 8:5).
But it is more than a new nature. Our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirt, and God’s love is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit which is given to us. And as love springs up like a well in us unto eternal life, so also living waters flow out from us by the Holy Spirit which we have received. All true devotedness, then, is the action of divine love in the redeemed, through the Holy Spirit given to them.
The Right Object
There may be a zeal which compasses sea and land, but it is in the interest of a prejudice, or the work of Satan. There may be natural benevolence clothed with a fairer name and irritated if it is not accepted for its own sake. There may be the sense of obligation and legal activity, which, through grace, may lead farther, though it is the pressure of conscience, not the activity of love. The activity of love does not destroy the sense of obligation in the saint, but alters the whole character of his work. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” In God, love is active, but sovereign; in the saint, it is active, but a duty, because of grace. Yet we owe it all — and more than all — to Him that loved us. Every right feeling in a creature must have an object, and, to be right, that object must be God, and God revealed in Christ as the Father, for in that way God possesses our souls.
Hence Paul, speaking of himself, says, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:2020I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)). His life was a divine life. Christ lived in him, but it was a life of faith, a life living wholly by an object, and that object Christ, and known as the Son of God loving and giving Himself for him. Here we get the practical character and motive of Christian devotedness — living to Christ.
Engaged With His Love
What is supposed here is not a law contending or arresting a will seeking its own pleasure, but the blessed and thankful yielding of ourselves to the love of the blessed Son of God, and a heart entering into that love and its object by a life which flows from Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. Hence, it is a law of liberty. Hence, too, it can only have objects of service which that life can have, and the Holy Spirit can fix the heart on, and that service will be the free service of delight. Flesh may seek to hinder, but its objects cannot be those the new man and the Holy Spirit seek. The heart ranges in the sphere in which Christ does. It loves the brethren, for Christ does, and all the saints, for He does. It seeks the all for whom Christ died, yet knowing that only grace can bring any of them, and endures “all things for the elect’s sake, that they may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.” It seeks “to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus” — to see the saints grow up to Him who is the Head in all things and walk worthy of the Lord. It seeks to see the church presented as a chaste virgin unto Christ. It continues in its love, though the more abundantly it loves, the less it be loved. It is ready to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
Love Delights to Serve
The governing motive characterizes our whole walk, for the Christian judges of everything by Christ. If something hinders His glory in oneself or another, it is cast away. It is judged of not as sacrifice, but cast away as a hindrance. How blessedly self is gone here! “Gain to me” has disappeared. What a deliverance that is! We have the privilege of forgetting self and living to Christ. Self likes to be served; love delights to serve. When we are in glory, Christ girds Himself and serves us. And shall not we, if we have the privilege, imitate, serve and give ourselves to Him, who so loves us? Living to God inwardly is the only possible means of living to Him outwardly. All outward activity not moved and governed by this is fleshly and even a danger to the soul; it tends to make us do without Christ and brings in self. It is not devotedness, for devotedness is to Christ, and this must be in looking to being with Him. I dread great activity without great communion, but I believe that, when the heart is with Christ, it will live to Him.
Devotedness
The form of devotedness, of external activity, will be governed by God’s will and the competency to serve, for devotedness is a humble, holy thing, doing its Master’s will, but the spirit of undivided service to Christ is the true part of every Christian. We want wisdom: God gives it liberally. Christ is our true wisdom. We want power: We learn it in dependence through Him who strengthens us. Devotedness is a dependent as it is a humble spirit. So it was in Christ. It waits on its Lord. It has courage and confidence in the path of God’s will, because it leans on divine strength in Christ. He can do all things. Hence it is patient and does what it has to do according to His will and Word, for then He can work, and He does all that is done which is good.
J. N. Darby (abridged)