Category: Devotion of the Day

LACKING “ONE THING” OR “NOTHING”

Lacked ye anything?
Luke 22:35

One thing thou lackest.
Mark 10:21

When the disciples went forth at the bidding of Jesus without purse or scrip or shoes, they lacked nothing. The rich young ruler had purse and scrip and shoes, but when he went away he lacked one thing, and, lacking that, he lacked everything.

When we obey our Lord’s orders and go forth by His commission we find His grace sufficient and our needs supplied through God’s riches in glory by Christ Jesus. But a man may have all else, yet if he be not willing to abandon it all for the Master, he is a pauper. The supreme thing in this life is to count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord. A man may have kept other commandments, but if he will not cut loose from his dearest earthly treasure at the bidding of the Lord, he has failed at the vital point and is still a rebel.

Nothing matters but this: does Jesus have the utter absolute first and final say in your life? If He does, you will lack nothing.

THE CONSTRAINT OF CHRIST

We love him, because he first loved us.
I John 4:19

For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich. II Corinthians 8:9.

Christ is the true motivation of Christian conduct. We do not love Him because we ought but because love begets love. He loved us and our hearts respond. We love others because His love constrains us, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost.

Likewise, we give, not because we ought and not because of the need primarily, but because He gave. “Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe.” Freely we have received, freely we give. Not grudgingly or of necessity, but cheerfully. Witness a drive for church funds, a pitiful plea on Sunday to wangle a few dollars of “church dues” and you will perceive how far we have left the New Testament way. The stunts, picnics, bazaars, the moth-eaten jokes, the high-pressure – “Who’ll give ten dollars?” God forgive us! God will never accept such money wrung from church misers. It is the gift without the giver, a vain oblation.