Every Christian is the bondsman of Jesus Christ; simply accept that, and it will be a great help to you. Has Christ the right to you? to all yours? Yes, you are His slave. Paul delights to call himself bond-slave. People in their natural amiability talk of the emancipation of slaves, but they carry it much further, they emancipate themselves. There is a very great claim connected with being a slave. Your master has full right over you. All yours belongs to the Lord. If you are a slave you cannot claim anything for yourself. Well, this is a great principle to get hold of, and you do not understand service until you do.
Very often we act as if we thought we were volunteers, that we may serve or not, just as we please. Not at all! You are slaves and have no option.
If you are a slave, you have no right to do anything but at the dictation of your master. “Ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” He has bought us (therefore He is the Savior of the body in that sense), and you ought to be glad that He has; the more you dwell on it, the more pleased you will be to be His slave. We ought to be able to answer all who ask, why do you do so and so? I am doing it righteously, I am Christ’s bondsman to do His pleasure; not what I like, but what He likes. To establish this turn to 1 Corinthians 7:22-2322For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant. 23Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men. (1 Corinthians 7:22‑23). “He that is called in the Lord, being a servant (slave), is the Lord’s freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ’s servant. Ye are bought with a price, be not ye the servants of men.”
You should be glad that you are a slave, because He is such a wonderful Master. It is here believers fail. They do not start with the fact, that they have a Master, who has a full right over their whole life. It is not what you think you can spare Him. If you are honestly and fairly in His hands as His slave, you may be quite certain He will take much better care of you than you could take of yourself.
People talk of fidelity, but do they begin with fidelity to Christ? If you are not right with Christ, you will be feeble elsewhere. If you are not right at the top, how can you be right anywhere else?
BE not so anxious to give out, that you never take in. Be not in so much hurry to do, that you forget to be. This is the haste that makes no speed. Old Nat had a large wood pile before him, and he sawed very hard to make that pile smaller. His saw needed sharpening and re-setting so badly, that it was dreadful work to make it go at An honest neighbor stepped up to him, and said, “Nat, why don’t you get that saw sharpened? If you got that put to rights, you would do a great deal more than you are doing.” “Now then,” replied Nat, “don’t you come bothering here, I have quite enough to do to saw that pile of wood, without stopping to sharpen my saw.”
It is needless to point the moral of that anecdote; take note of it, and in future act accordingly. It is a waste of time, not an economy of it, to dispense with study, private prayer, and due preparation for your work.
Those who serve the Lord have more cause to pray and read their Bibles, than any other people in the world. It was a very wet day the last time I was at Cologne, and I occupied a room in the hotel, which presented me with a highly picturesque view of the public pump. There was nothing else to see, and it rained so hard that I could not shift my quarters; so I sat and wrote letters, and glanced at the old pump.
People came with pails for water, and one came with a barrel on his back, and filled it. In the course of an hour that individual came several times; indeed, he came almost as often as all the others put together, and always filled up his vessel. I rightly concluded that he was a seller of water, and supplied other people, hence he came oftener and had a larger vessel than anyone else.
And that is precisely our condition. Having to carry the living water to others, we must go oftener to the well; and we must go with more capacious vessels than the general run of Christians. Look then, ye who would be Christ’s servants, to your personal piety, and draw largely from the source and spring of all good.
Going through the famous factory of Sevres the other day, I noticed an artist painting a very beautiful vase. I looked at him, but he did not look at me; his eyes were better engaged than in staring at a stranger.
There were several persons at my heels, and they all looked at him, and made various observations, yet the worker’s eye never moved from his work. He had to paint the picture on that vase, and what benefit would he get from noticing us, or from our noticing him? He kept to his work. We would fain see such concentration and abstraction in every man who has the Lord’s work to do. “This one thing I do.” Some frown, some smile, but this one thing I do. Some think they could do it better, but this one thing I do. How they could do it may be their business, but it certainly is not mine.