THE LIFE YIELDED – WHY?

Christ has just two ways of making Himself known; one is through His Word. But countless thousands do not even possess a Bible, and countless millions could not read it if they did. The other way is through us in whom He dwells as the Life of our life. Oh! Do you not see how He needs your body to be wholly His? Today, He needs eyes, ears, lips, hands, feet, minds, hearts, wills, and all that makes up a human personality for the manifestation of Himself on earth as truly as these things were needed when He dwelt as the incarnate Son in a human body. When Christ was upon earth, it was not merely His teaching and preaching that won men to Him. It was His life, His personal presence, Himself. So today men need to see Christ, to feel His presence, to be brought face to face with Him. The Lord Jesus showed me that day that He wanted and needed my body, with my entire human personality, to indwell and use as a medium for revealing Himself to others.

There was something wondrously beautiful in the thought that the Lord of glory could ever have need of me. I knew only too well how desperately I needed Him. Moment by moment, I needed to draw all my life from Him as the branch lives in the life of the vine. But to think that He needed me! that there was fruit to be borne that could only be borne on a branch! that some life somewhere would need to see Christ in me! It was a marvelously convincing appeal, yet I am ashamed to record it even now, so many years afterward, I hesitated to yield.

Was my life not my own? Was it not asking a great deal to turn it over to the absolute sovereignty of another? Should I relinquish all right to its possession and control? Was it safe to do so? Was it reasonable? Was it needful? Oh! The feasible, plausible arguments that self-advanced to retain the kingship over my life!

All this reluctance was anticipated by the Lord, and He was prepared to meet it. “What? Know ye that ye are not your own?” Like a sharp two-edged sword, these words penetrated to my innermost being and lodged there. How they cut into shreds every argument advanced against such a wholesale yielding of myself to God! “Know ye that ye are not your own?” How they severed the undergirding beneath all my thinking concerning my rights in myself! “Know ye that ye are not your own?” How they brought to light the hitherto disguised hypocrisy of my profession as a Christian in saying that I belonged to Jesus Christ, yet all the while retaining in my own hands the reins of government! “Know ye that ye are not your own?” How these words went straight to the very heart of the issue like an axe laid at the root of the tree — the enthronement of Jesus Christ as Lord over my life or the continued reign of self!

A flood of light entered my soul through that simple but imperative question of the Lord. I was convinced of the rightfulness of God’s claim upon me, but I was not yet constrained to yield to it. Oh! the incredible, unthinkable stubbornness to resist and refuse in the light of such clear conviction! Oh! the infinite, unwearying patience of the divine heart to continue to woo and to work in the face of such willfulness!

I was not only stubborn but fearful. If I let go and put myself wholly and unconditionally in His possession and control, what might He not take from me? What might He not ask of me? I was in the same state of mind as the college girl who said she would like to yield herself wholly to God, but she was afraid He would take advantage of her. To put the truth very bluntly, I would have been glad to have turned over to the Lord for His possession and control all the unpleasant, unmanageable, uncontrollable parts of myself if He would have left the rest to me!

But God dealt very gently and tenderly with me, drawing me closer and closer to Himself by the cords of love. To master my will, He had to melt my heart. “What? know ye that ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price?” Bought! Not my own because bought! Here again was something new. I had been thinking that by yielding to Christ I would be conferring ownership of my life upon Him, that I would be making an outright gift to Him. But God showed me that day that I already belonged to Christ by right of purchase and that Christ’s claim to the undivided possession and control of my life was an absolutely legitimate one. Who could deny one the right to that which He had purchased?

Convinced again and still not constrained to yield. “Ye are not your own for ye are bought with a price.” Oh! That price! “Redeemed not with corruptible things, as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” The precious blood of Christ the price paid for me! The life of the spotless, stainless, sinless Son of God was laid down for my paltry, insignificant, sinful, selfish life! A Life given for a life!

2 Corinthians 5:15

“And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.”

A LIFE FOR A LIFE “Oh, hands, outstretched upon the tree, Nail-pierced by shameless cruelty! Why, blessed Christ, had this to be? A voice most loving said to me: ‘Dear child, these hands of Mine were bruised That thine in ministry be used In loving service such as Mine; My hands were given to purchase thine.’   “Oh, feet of Christ, so rent and torn! How could such suffering be borne? In life, so often spent and worn, In death, must they be given to scorn? ‘On mercy’s errands thine may go, A free, glad helpfulness to show; It was for thee,’ the Savior said, ‘My feet for thine so sadly bled.’   “Oh, head of Christ, with thorn-wrought crown! In grief and agony bowed down; Why didst Thy heavenly renown Exchange for earthly jeer and frown? ‘My child, beneath those thorns I bought Thy intellect and all its thought; The glory-crown was left for thee, That thou mightst give thy mind to Me.’   “Oh, heart of Christ! Oh, wounded side! Oh, Man of Sorrows, crucified! Who in such anguish, sinless, died, Hast Thou done aught for me beside? ‘Ah, child of mine, my heart was riven That thou mightst live and love in Heaven; That all thy heart, thy life, might be Surrendered joyfully to Me.'”

I had been saying, “Must I give myself to Him?” But on that day, kneeling in spirit at the foot of the cross of Christ, I said from the depths of my heart, “May I yield all that I am and have for time and for eternity to Him who gave all for me?”

And what was the basic motive in the yielding? It was the joyous response of love to love following the spiritual apprehension of the reasonableness and rightfulness of Christ’s claim upon my life and the use He desired to make of it.

Source: “Life on the Highest Plane” by Ruth Paxson

Lord, even after You purchased us with Your precious blood, You still don’t force us to give ourselves to You.