When A Christian Robs Christ
But, it may be objected, how can a Christian surrender? Does he not already belong to Christ? Ah, that is the sad tragedy of it. Will a man rob God? Yes, the Church of Christ is largely robbing him to-day of the only offering he cares for—ourselves as living sacrifices. We are indeed bought with a price, the precious blood of Christ, we are not our own, we belong to him. Have you acknowledged this ownership in every detail, not with your lips alone, but with your life, in its every action? That is the first requirement for Victory. And Victory will never be enjoyed until the surrender question is settled. An earnest young Christian woman was in defeat and distress because there was something she would not yield. She acknowledged it was pride, but she could not give it up.
“Whom do you belong to?” she was asked.
“Christ.”
“What price did he pay for you?”
“His own life.”
“But you are saying to him there is something you are holding back. What are you doing?”
“I suppose I am crucifying him afresh,” she answered, the tears coming.
“Yes, you are robbing him.”
But the struggle went on and she would not yield.
“Will you kneel down and just tell the Lord that you are robbing him, and that you intend to keep on robbing him?”
She shrank from such a thought, and she kneeled down and told her Lord that she would yield that one thing she was holding back, and that there was nothing that she was not willing to do that he wanted.
She arose with a radiant face, and as the days went on it developed that God did not want her to do the thing she was shrinking back from doing. A Christian may be kept out of victory because he says he would not be willing to go to the mission field, or send his sons to the mission field. God may not want him to go, but he can never have Victory as long as there is an unwillingness to do what God may want him to do. For this is doubting God and his love.