From what has been said above it is clear that no law can be laid down.
_It is not a question of law, but of liberty._ But we must understand
that word "liberty" aright. Too often Christian liberty is spoken of as
our freedom from too great restraint in sacrificing our own will, or the
enjoyment of the world. Its real meaning is the very opposite. True love
asks to be as free as possible from self and the world to bring its all
to God. Instead of the question, How far am I, as a Christian, free
still to do this or the other? the truly free spirit asks, How far am I
free to follow Christ to the uttermost? Does the freedom with which
Christ hath made us free really give us the liberty, in a love which
longs for the closest possible likeness and union with Him--still to
forsake all and follow Him? Among the gifts and calling he still
dispenses to His church, will there not be some whom by His spirit He
still draws in this particular, too, to bear and show forth His image?
Do we not need as much as when He and His apostles were upon earth, men
and women to give concrete and practical evidence that the man who
literally gives up all of earthly possession because he sets his heart
upon the treasure in heaven, can count upon God to provide for the
things of earth?
Is not this, amid the universal confession of worldliness in the church
and the Christian life, just the protest that is needed against the so
subtle but mighty claim that the world makes upon us? In connection with
every church and mission and work of philanthropy the question is asked,
"_How is it_ that in Christian countries hundreds of millions are spent
on luxuries, with scarce single millions for God's work?" Calculations
are made as to what could be done if all Christians were only to be
moderately liberal. I fear all such argument avails little. Help must
come from a different direction. It was of the innermost circle that He
had gathered around Himself that Christ asked a poverty as absolute as
His own. It is in the innermost circle of God's children, among those
who make the highest profession of insight into the riches of grace and
their entire surrender to it, that we must find the witnesses that His
Spirit can still inspire and strengthen to bear His poverty. He has done
it, and is doing it. In many a missionary and Salvation Army officer, in
many a humble unknown worker, _His Spirit is working out this trait_ of
His blessed likeness. In the days we are looking for of deeper revival
among God's children He will do it still more abundantly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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