I found yesterday’s Oswald Chambers daily to be a good reminder:
“Lovest thou me….feed my sheep.” – John 21:16
Jesus did not say – Make converts to your way of thinking, but look after My sheep, see that they get nourished in the knowledge of Me. We count as service what we do in the way of Christian work; Jesus Christ calls service what we are to Him, not what we do for Him. Discipleship is based on devotion to Jesus Christ, not on adherence to a belief or creed. “If any man comes to me and hate not…, he cannot be my disciple.” There is no argument and no compulsion, but simply – If you would be My disciple, you must be devoted to Me. A man touched by the Spirit of God suddenly says – “Now I see who Jesus is,” and that is the source of devotion.
Today we have substituted creedal belief for personal belief, and that is why so many are devoted to causes and so few devoted to Jesus Christ. People do not want to be devoted to Jesus, but only to the cause He started. Jesus is the source of deep offense to the educated mind of today that does not want him in any other way than as a comrade. The lord’s first obedience was to the will of his father not to the needs of men. The saving of men was the natural outcome of his obedience to his father. If I am devoted to the cause of humanity only I will soon be exhausted and come to the place where my love will faulter, but if I love Jesus Christ personally and passionately I can serve humanity though men treat me as a doormat. The secret of a disciples life is devotion to Jesus Christ and the characteristics of the life is it’s unobtrusiveness. It is like a corn of wheat, which falls into the ground and dies, but presently it will spring up and alter the whole landscape.
neumatikos 