Each saint is in the place of decision today. Will we leave all and follow Christ? Will we forsake all ? Is it true of us as an individual that for us to live is Christ? Do we regard it as gain for us to die?

Christ loves each saint with an intensity far beyond our human ability to comprehend. He is not satisfied with our money, time, efforts. Christ demands our heart. His demand continually brings us to the point of decision: will we give all of ourselves to the Lord Jesus? Or will we attempt to serve Him while we hold back some part of our personality for other purposes?

A truly horrible spirit has overtaken Christianity in our time. It is a spirit of using Christ in order to promote our own pursuits in the world. God's ministers, perhaps without realizing it, are advising the Lord's people to turn the Lord into their servant to do their bidding. But the Apostle Paul was the bondslave of the Lord Jesus.

Christian discipleship has been changed into a system of spiritual principles by which the believer can gain money, status, success, a stronger marriage, popularity, personal fulfillment, and wisdom and power in all other areas of life in this world.

Christ taught us that we have not because we ask not. If we have a material need, we should go to the Lord and let our need be made known to Him, meanwhile praising the Father for His goodness to us. But the faith of Christ is not to be used as a means of gaining riches and comfort.

Whatever we ask in faith, we shall receive. Are we, therefore, to use our God-given faith to acquire the riches of the world system?

Is this the Gospel of Christ? of Peter? of Paul? of James?

Christ did not come down from Heaven in order to make us comfortable in this life. He came to demand from us our absolute obedience, our time, our energy, and our total love. He gives us a cross to bear.

The Lord Jesus Christ is not our servant to do our bidding. However, it is a fact that the only truly free, joyous human being is the one who gives himself or herself to Jesus to be His servant.

Whom the Son sets free is free indeed.

But Christ did not come down from Heaven to set men free to pursue their own plans and ambitions. He came to make them His own possession.

Those who persist in attempting to use the Lord's great love in order to carry out their own interests, in order to flirt with other lords and gods in their own desires and lusts, will discover the Lord Jesus will know them afar off—if He recognizes them at all.

Christ is not seeking to be used by us. He is seeking those who will abandon their own interests and pursuits, who will cease attempting to use Him in order to follow their own ways.

To be continued.