{"id":4274,"date":"2009-03-29T19:45:22","date_gmt":"2009-03-29T23:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/april2009\/?p=90"},"modified":"2009-03-29T19:45:22","modified_gmt":"2009-03-29T23:45:22","slug":"the-delight-of-sacrifice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/2009\/03\/29\/the-delight-of-sacrifice\/","title":{"rendered":"THE DELIGHT OF SACRIFICE"},"content":{"rendered":"

I will very gladly spend and be spent for you;<\/p>\n

— 2 Corinthians 12:15<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When the Spirit of God has shed abroad the love of God in our hearts,
\nwe begin deliberately to identify ourselves with Jesus Christ’s
\ninterests in other people, and Jesus Christ is interested in every
\nkind of man there is. We have no right in Christian work to be guided
\nby our affinities; this is one of the biggest tests of our
\nrelationship to Jesus Christ. The delight of sacrifice is that I lay
\ndown my life for my Friend, not fling it away, but deliberately lay
\nmy life out for Him and His interests in other people, not for a
\ncause. Paul spent himself for one purpose only – that he might win
\nmen to Jesus Christ. Paul attracted to Jesus all the time, never to
\nhimself. “I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means
\nsave some.” When a man says he must develop a holy life alone with
\nGod, he is of no more use to his fellow men: he puts himself on a
\npedestal, away from the common run of men. Paul became a sacramental
\npersonality; wherever he went, Jesus Christ helped Himself to his
\nlife. Many of us are after our own ends, and Jesus Christ cannot help
\nHimself to our lives. If we are abandoned to Jesus, we have no ends
\nof our own to serve. Paul said he knew how to be a “door-mat” without
\nresenting it, because the mainspring of his life was devotion to
\nJesus. We are apt to be devoted, not to Jesus Christ, but to the
\nthings which emancipate us spiritually. That was not Paul’s motive.
\n“I could wish my self were accursed from Christ for my brethren” –
\nwild, extravagant – is it? When a man is in love it is not an
\nexaggeration to talk in that way, and Paul is in love with Jesus
\nChrist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; — 2 Corinthians 12:15 When the Spirit of God has shed abroad the love of God in our hearts, we begin deliberately to identify ourselves with Jesus Christ’s interests in other people, and Jesus Christ is interested in every kind of man there is. We…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"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-4274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4274","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4274\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}