{"id":3593,"date":"2008-10-13T18:23:01","date_gmt":"2008-10-13T23:23:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/os-chambers\/are-you-discouraged-in-devotion"},"modified":"2008-10-13T18:23:01","modified_gmt":"2008-10-13T23:23:01","slug":"are-you-discouraged-in-devotion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/2008\/10\/13\/are-you-discouraged-in-devotion\/","title":{"rendered":"ARE YOU DISCOURAGED IN DEVOTION?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

     Yet lackest thou one thing; sell all that thou hast . .
     and come, follow Me. <\/p>\n

     — Luke 18:22<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

“And when he heard this . . .” Have you ever heard the Master say a
hard word? If you have not, I question whether you have heard Him say
anything. Jesus Christ says a great deal that we listen to, but do
not hear; when we do hear, His words are amazingly hard. <\/p>\n

Jesus did not seem in the least solicitous that this man should do
what He told him, He made no attempt to keep him with Him. He simply
said – Sell all you have, and come, follow Me. Our Lord never
pleaded, He never cajoled, He never entrapped; He simply spoke the
sternest words mortal ears ever listened to, and then left it alone. <\/p>\n

Have I ever heard Jesus say a hard word? Has He said something
personally to me to which I have deliberately listened? Not something
I can expound or say this and that about, but something I have heard
Him say to me? This man did understand what Jesus said, he heard it
and he sized up what it meant, and it broke his heart. He did not go
away defiant; he went away sorrowful, thoroughly discouraged. He had
come to Jesus full of the fire of earnest desire, and the word of
Jesus simply froze him; instead of producing an enthusiastic
devotion, it produced a heart-breaking discouragement. And Jesus did
not go after him, He let him go. Our Lord knows perfectly that when
once His word is heard, it will bear fruit sooner or later. The
terrible thing is that some of us prevent it bearing fruit in actual
life. I wonder what we will say when we do make up our minds to be
devoted to Him on that particular point? One thing is certain, He
will never cast anything up at us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

     Yet lackest thou one thing; sell all that thou hast . .     and come, follow Me.      — Luke 18:22 “And when he heard this . . .” Have you ever heard the Master say ahard word? If you have not, I question whether you have heard Him sayanything. Jesus Christ says a great…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"twitterCardType":"","cardImageID":0,"cardImage":"","cardTitle":"","cardDesc":"","cardImageAlt":"","cardPlayer":"","cardPlayerWidth":0,"cardPlayerHeight":0,"cardPlayerStream":"","cardPlayerCodec":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3593\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}