The richest quality of love is sacrifice, and the noblest credential of any work is the spirit on the part of its members, which has laid every selfish interest down at Jesus’ feet, counting all things loss for Christ; which holds its money, its friendships, its life, all subservient to the Master’s claim, and living a dying life, at last gives life itself a willing offering to Him who gave His life for us.
In this selfish and luxurious age, it is the rarest quality to be found, but it is the most needed; and as the end approaches, and the last tribulation draws near, the age of martyrdom will reach the climax, and the tears of sorrow and the blood of sacrifice will be transformed into the jewels of the Coronation Day.
It requires a greater sacrifice sometimes to live than to die; and those who will be found one day ready to die for Christ are those whose lives are now laid down in ten thousand little tests that come to us from day to day.
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
“Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel” (Philippians 1:27).