Most of us call ourselves "Christians." Have you realized that to be a Christian, in the true sense of the word, means nothing less than that you are Christ’s "liege man of life and limb," and that you are utterly committed "faith and truth to bear unto Him, to live and die, against all manner of folks?" This personal devotion to the living Christ is the most central thing in Christianity. If a man is going to be a real Christian it will mean more than just assenting to the Creed, and going to Church, and "feeling religious" at favourable moments. It will mean entering into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and letting Him be in command, not on specified occasions, but every day and all the time. The difficulty with many people is that Christianity only touches the circumference of their existence and never seems to get established right at the centre of heart and life. It simply makes the whole difference when once you discover that Jesus Christ is a real Person Who, on His side, is interested in you and loves to help you and go about with you, and Whom you, on your side, can talk to and lean on and, gradually, begin to love. It is always in this personal way that God in Christ offers Himself to men. He is the Redeemer Who will release you from the iron bonds of sin, the Friend Who will stand by your side, the King Who would have your loyal service. And, in order to break for good and all the power of sin and death, and that He might found His Kingdom on the free loyalty of love, _He died_.... It is a common thing for men to lay down their lives for king and country; but here is a King dying for His subjects. Have you ever tried to realize what _sin_ means? It must mean at least this: that when you and I do wrong we are doing something that hurts God, something that inevitably puts a barrier between Him and us. And is it not premature to speak of love and loyalty to Him as long as that barrier is there? Now, however amazing it may seem, there has proved to be no other way but one in which that barrier could be utterly and finally broken down--and God chose that way, the way of the Cross. Deliberately, gladly, the Son of God _died_. That which is a lasting puzzle to theologians and philosophers, is just sheer good tidings, and tidings found to be true, to ordinary people who are hungry in soul. I always think that at once the simplest and profoundest statement of the meaning of the death of Christ is that contained in the old children’s hymn: "He died that we might be forgiven, He died to make us good; That we might go at last to heaven, Saved by His precious blood." Can we withhold our loyalty from Him Who stands before us, not only as a King demanding our rightful allegiance, but as One Who loves us so much that He died for us? "Were the whole realm of Nature mine, That were an offering far too small; Love so amazing, so Divine Demands my soul, my life, my all.