“If you have to calculate what you are willing to give up for Jesus Christ, never say that you love Him. Jesus Christ asks us to give up the best we have got to Him, our right to ourselves.” (Oswald Chambers)

A sermon from the summer at Lee Abbey on Love.

A few more quotes:

“Breezy, self-confident Christians tell us how wonderful it is to accept Christ and then have a good time all the rest of your life; the Lord won’t demand anything of you. Yes, He will, my friend! The Lord will demand everything of you. And when you give it all up to Him, He may bless it and hand it back, but on the other hand He may not…” (A.W. Tozer)

John Wesley’s ‘Covenant Prayer’

“I am no longer my own, but Yours.
Put me to what You will,
Rank me with whoever You will.
Put me to suffering.
Let me be employed for You,
Or laid aside for You.
Exalted for You, or brought low for You.
Let me be full
Let me be empty.
Let me have all things,
Let me have nothing!
And now, O Father,You are mine and I am Yours. So be it.
And the covenant I am making on earth,
Let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.”

David Livingstone wrote in his journal on one occasion concerning his “selfless” life: “People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paying back a small part of the great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind and a bright hope of glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege.”

“The eyes of the Lord are still searching out those willing to live their lives above the gunnels of mediocrity and beyond the realms of inevitability. In our cynical age, God is looking for those naïve enough to believe that the world can still be changed, those simple fools whose vision is to live and die for Christ alone.” (Pete Greig)