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 be not accepted for its own sake. There may be the sense of obligation and legal activity, which, through grace, may lead farther, though it be 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. It must be free to have the divine character—to be love. Yet we owe it all, and more than an, to Him that loved us. The Spirit of God which dwells in us is a Spirit of adoption, and so of liberty with God; but it fixes the heart on God's love in a constraining way. 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." 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. We live on account of Christ; He is the Object and reason of our life (all outside is the sphere of death); but this is the constraining power of the sense of His giving Himself for us. So, in a passage already referred to, "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 which died for them, and rose again." They live to and for that, and nothing else. It may be a motive for various duties, but it is the motive and end of life. We are not our own, but bought with a price, and have to glorify God in our bodies (1 Cor. 6:20).
What is supposed here is not a law contending or arresting a will seeking its own pleasure, but the blessed and thankful sense of our owning 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 Ghost. Hence it is a law of liberty. Hence too, it can only have objects of service which that life can have, and the Holy Ghost 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 Ghost 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 them 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 also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory" (2 Tim. 2:10). It seeks to "present every man perfect in Christ Jesus" (Col. 1:28); 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 to Christ. It continues in its love, though the more abundantly it loves, the less it is loved. It is ready to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
The governing motive characterizes all our walk; all is judged by it. A man of pleasure flings away money; so does an ambitious man. They judge of the value of things by pleasure and power. The covetous man thinks his path folly, judges of everything by its tendency to enrich. The Christian judges of everything by Christ. If it hinders His glory in oneself or another, it is cast away. It is judged of not as sacrifice, but cast away as a hindrance. All is dross and dung for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord. To cast away dross is no great sacrifice. How blessedly self is gone here! "Gain to me" has disappeared. What a deliverance that is! Unspeakably precious for ourselves, and morally elevating! Christ gave Himself. We have the privilege of forgetting self and living to Christ. It will be rewarded, our service in grace; but love has its own joys in serving in love. Self likes to be served. Love delights to serve.
So we see, in Christ, on earth, now; when we are in glory, He girds Himself and serves us. And shall not we, if we have the privilege, imitate, serve, 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—tends to make us do without Christ, and brings in self. It is not devotedness, for devotedness is devotedness 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.
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 need wisdom; God gives it liberally. Christ is our true wisdom. We need power; we learn it in dependence through Him who strengthens us. Devotedness is a dependent, as it is a humble, spirit. So it was with 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.
There is another side of this which we have to look at. The simple fact of undivided service in love is only joy and blessing. But we are in a world where it will be opposed and rejected, and the heart will naturally save self. This Peter presented to Christ, and Christ treated it as Satan. We shall find the flesh shrink instinctively from the fact and from the effect of devotedness to Christ, because it is giving up self, and brings reproach, neglect, and opposition on us. We have to take up our cross to follow Christ—not to return to bid adieu to them that are at home in the house. It is our home still, if we may say so, and we shall at best be "John Marks"
in the work. And it will be found it is ever then "suffer me first"! If there be anything but Christ, it will be before Christ, not devotedness to Him with a single eye. But this is difficult to the heart, that there should be no self-seeking, no self-sparing, no self-indulgence! Yet none of these things are devotedness to Christ and to others, but the very opposite. Hence, if we are to live to Christ, we must hold ourselves dead, and alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
And in point of fact, if the flesh be practically allowed, it is a continual hindrance, and reproach and opposition are then a burden, not a glory. We have with Paul to bear about in our body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal bodies (2 Cor. 4:10, 11), and so to have the sentence of death made good in ourselves. Here the Lord's help, through trials and difficulties, comes in. But we are "more than conquerors through Him that loved us." Nothing separates us from that love. But if we come to the management of our own heart, we shall find that this "always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus" is the great difficulty, and tests the inward state of the soul. Yet there is no liberty of service nor power but in measure of it; only, remark, we have this power in the sense of grace. It is the power of the sense we have of His dying and giving Himself for us, which by grace makes us hold ourselves as dead to all but Him. Outwardly it may be comparatively easy, and so is outward labor when self and Satan's power are not felt in opposition. But to have Christ's dying always made good against self, detected by the cross, supposes Christ to be all in the affections. The true power and quality of work is measured by it—the operation of God's Spirit by us. This is the one way of devotedness in God's sight, and God's power and the having the mind of Christ in the service we do render. This only is life. And the rest of our life, not to speak of loss or judgment, perishes when our breath goes forth. It belongs to the first Adam and to the scene he moves in, not to the Last. It is only the life which we live by Christ which remains as life.
Its motives and character are twofold: the cross, and Christ in glory. The love of Christ constrains us in the cross to give ourselves wholly up to Him who has so loved us, given Himself wholly up for us. The winning Christ and being like Him in glory gives energy, and the spring and power of hope to our path. But how constraining and mighty is the first motive, if we have really felt it! Yet how lowly! It makes us of little esteem to ourselves in the presence of such love. We see we are not our own, but bought with a price. Nor is that all. The sense of the love of Christ takes possession of the heart, and constrains us. We desire to live also to Him who gave Himself for us. The perfection of the offering and the absoluteness and perfectness with which it was offered, alike His love to us in it, has power over our souls. "Through the eternal Spirit [He] offered Himself without spot to God" (Heb. 9:14). The sense that we are not our own deepens the claim in our hearts, yet takes away all merit in the devotedness. So wise and sanctifying are God's ways! How does the thought too of winning Him make all around us but dross and dung for the excellency of the knowledge of Him! What is all compared with pleasing Him, possessing Him, being with Him and like Him forever! It puts the value of Christ, as the motive, on everything we do. It leads to true largeness of heart, for all dear to Him becomes precious to us, yet keeps from all looseness of nature, feelings, for we are shut up to Christ. What is not His glory is impossible. It puts sin practically out of the heart by the power of divine affections, by having the heart filled with Him. Practically, the new nature only lives with Christ for its Object.
It applies too, remark, to everything, because we have to please Christ in everything. Dress, worldly manners, worldliness in every shape disappears. They cannot be alike or agreeable to Him whom the world rejected, because He testified to it that its works were evil. The tone of the mind is unworldly, does not refer to it, save to do good to it when it can. The place of the Christian is to be the epistle of Christ. Christ thus possessing the heart has a circumscribing power. The motives, thoughts, relationships of the world, do not enter into the heart. But Christ moving all within, and all being referred in the heart to Him, it carries out its own character in Him out into the world. Kept from the evil, it is the active exercise of good that is in Him, the love of God; the heart shut up to God, but all the blessedness of God going out in the measure in which the vessel contains it.
The love is thus active. Christ has purified "unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." Christ's love was active, but it is guided by the mind of Christ. It loves the brethren as Christ did; that is, has its spring in itself, not in the object; but feels all their sorrows and infirmities, yet is above them all so as to bear and forbear, and find in them the occasion of its holy exercises. It is alike tender in spirit and firm in consistency with the divine path, for such was Christ's love.
It has another character: whatever its devotedness and activity, it is obedience. There cannot be a righteous will in a creature, for righteousness in a creature is obedience. Adam fell, having a will independent of God. Christ came to do the will of Him that sent Him, and in His highest devotedness His path was that of obedience. "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me. But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave Me commandment, even so I do." This both guides in devotedness and keeps us quiet and humble.
Our conclusion, then, is simple undivided devotedness to Christ—Christ the only Object, whatever duties that motive may lead to faithfulness in; nonconformity to the world which rejected Him; a bright heavenly hope connecting itself with Christ in glory, who will come and receive us to Himself and make us like Him, so that we should be as men that wait for their Lord; His love constraining us, in all things caring for what He cares for; Christ crucified, and Christ before us as our hope, the center round which our whole life turns.
There is another point one may do well to notice, which makes the plain difference between devotedness and natural kindness. "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." The Lord does not tell them to let their good works shine before men; elsewhere He says the contrary. But their profession of Christ is to be so distinct that men may know to what to attribute their good works, and glorify their Father which is in heaven. What is needed among Christians is, that through grace they should be Christians devoted, plainly devoted, in all their ways, devoted in heart and soul to Him who loved them and gave Himself for them.