Christ, "The servant is not greater than his Lord"? Are we
so anxious to be His servants that we would willingly sacrifice whatever
stood in the way of our serving Him? Are we content to be as He was in
the world? There are always many in the Christian Church who are, first,
men of the world, and, secondly, varnished with Christianity; who do not
seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; who do not yet
understand that the _whole_ of life must be consecrated to Christ and
spring from His will, and who therefore without compunction do make
themselves greater in every worldly respect than their professed Lord.
There are also many in the Christian Church at all times who decline to
make more of this world than Christ Himself did, and whose constant
study it is to put all they have at His disposal. Now, we cannot too
seriously inquire to which of these classes we belong. Are we making a
_bona-fide_ thing of our attachment to Christ? Do we feel it in every
part of our life? Do we strive, not to minimise our service and His
claims, but to be wholly His? Have His words, "The servant is not
greater than his Lord," any meaning to us at all? Is His service truly
the main thing we seek in life? I say we should seriously inquire if
this is so; for not hereafter, but now, are we finally determining our
relation to all things by our relation to Christ.

But, secondly, we must beware of disheartening ourselves by hastily
concluding that in our case Christ's grace has failed. If we may accept
the Book of Revelation as a true picture, not merely of the conflict of
the Church, but also of the conflict of the individual, then only in the
end can we look for quiet and achieved victory--only in the closing
chapters does conflict cease and victory seem no more doubtful. If it is
to be so with us, the fact of our losing some of the battles must not
discourage us from continuing the campaign. Nothing is more painful and
humbling than to find ourselves falling into unmistakable sin after much
concernment with Christ and His grace; but the very resentment we feel
and the deep and bitter humiliation must be used as incentive to further
effort, and must not be allowed to sound permanent defeat and surrender
to sin.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] =hodegesei=.

[19] Godet says: "The saying xiv. 26 gives the formula of the
inspiration of our Gospels; ver. 13 gives that of the inspiration of the
Epistles and the Apocalypse."

XV.

_LAST