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LIVING ONLY FOR CHRIST
From Spurgeon's book, "The Saint & His Savior"
"For to me, to live is Christ..." -Phil. 1:21
The gracious soul will labor after an entire annihilation
of selfishness, and a complete absorption into Christ
of its aims, joys, desires, and hopes.
The highest conceivable state of spirituality is
produced by a concentration of all the powers
and passions of the soul upon the person of Christ.
We have asked a great thing when we have
asked to be wholly surrendered to Christ.
It is the highest stage to have no wish, no thought, no desire, but
Christ-- to feel that to die would be bliss, if it were for Christ--
that to live in penury, and woe, and scorn, and contempt, and
misery for Christ, would be sweet-- to feel that it matters
nothing what becomes of one's self, so long as our Master is but
exalted-- to feel that though like a sear leaf, we are blown in the
blast, yet we are quite careless where we are going, so long as
we feel that the Master's hand is guiding us according to His will.
As long as there is a particle of selfishness remaining in us,
it will mar our sweet fellowship with Christ- and until we get a
complete riddance of it, our joy will never be unmixed with grief.
We must dig at the roots of our selfishness to find the worm
which eats our happiness. The soul of the believer will always
pant for this serene condition of passive surrender, and will not
content itself until it has thoroughly plunged into the sea of divine
love. Here in the lowest valley of self-renunciation, the believer
walks upon a very pinnacle of exaltation. Bowing himself, he
knows that he is rising immeasurable high when he is sinking into
nothing. Falling flat on his face, he feels that he is mounting to
the highest elevation of grandeur.
It is the Christian's highest aspiration to be absorbed into Christ,
and lose himself in the glories of his sovereign Savior.
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