We want our lives kept, not that we may
feel happy, and be saved the distress consequent on wandering, and get
the power with God and man, and all the other privileges linked with it.
We shall have all this, because the lower is included in the higher; but
our true aim, if the love of Christ constraineth us, will be far beyond
this. Not for 'me' at all but 'for Jesus'; not for my safety, but for His
glory; not for my comfort, but for His joy; not that I may find rest, but
that He may see the travail of His soul, and be satisfied! Yes, for _Him_
I want to be kept. Kept for His sake; kept for His use; kept to be His
witness; kept for His joy! Kept for Him, that in me He may show forth
some tiny sparkle of His light and beauty; kept to do His will and His
work in His own way; kept, it may be, to suffer for His sake; kept for
Him, that He may do just what seemeth Him good with me; kept, so that no
other lord shall have any more dominion over me, but that Jesus shall
have all there is to have;--little enough, indeed, but not divided or
diminished by any other claim. Is not this, O you who love the Lord--is
not this worth living for, worth asking for, worth trusting for?

This is consecration, and I cannot tell you the blessedness of it. It is
not the least use arguing with one who has had but a taste of its
blessedness, and saying to him, 'How can these things be?' It is not the
least use starting all sorts of difficulties and theoretical suppositions
about it with such a one, any more than it was when the Jews argued with
the man who said, 'One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I
see.' The Lord Jesus does take the life that is offered to Him, and He
does keep the life for Himself that is entrusted to Him; but until the
life is offered we cannot know the taking, and until the life is
entrusted we cannot know or understand the keeping. All we can do is to
say, 'O taste and see!' and bear witness to the reality of Jesus Christ,
and set to our seal that we have found Him true to His every word, and
that we have proved Him able even to do exceeding abundantly above all we
asked or thought. Why should we hesitate to bear this testimony? We have
done nothing at all; we have, in all our efforts, only proved to
ourselves, and perhaps to others, that we had no power either to give or
keep our lives. Why should we not, then, glorify His grace by
acknowledging that we have found Him so wonderfully and tenderly gracious
and fai