While I was jogging last night I started listening to Piper’s biography on Charles Spurgeon. And while I profoundly recommend listening to or reading the whole thing, these quotes from Spurgeon on being worn out in the Master’s service stuck out:
If by excessive labour, we die before reaching the average age of man, worn out in the Master’s service, then glory be to God, we shall have so much less of earth and so much more of Heaven! It is our duty and our privilege to exhaust our lives for Jesus. We are not to be living specimens of men in fine preservation, but living sacrifices, whose lot is to be consumed. We can only produce life in others by the wear and tear of our own being. This is a natural and spiritual law, that fruit can only come to the seed by its spending and be spent even to self-exhaustion.
8 Comments
You know what? I will listen to it. Cool picture!
Thanks for the post Sk. It is encouraging to see that even you are getting spiritually worn out in ways for service of the kingdom. Very cool post.
dave
Very encouraging and convicting quotes, Sean. thanks.
I don’t actually know if I can claim to be working that hard, but I can at least agree that it’s convicting.
An intersting historical foil to this idea is Jonathan Edwards comments on David Brainard. I believe that in the foreward to Brainards diary he stated said that Bainards lack of care for himself was wrong and a spiritual issue. Although I am sure he said it with cooler words and more scripture then I am. Of course they did have cool hair back then.
PS: I like the pic as well.
Thanks for the post. As has already been said it was convicting and encouraging.
No doubt that those with cooler heads (and cooler hair) also speak of the proper place for rest. In fact, in that same biography by Piper he quotes Spurgeon as saying:
“The bow cannot be always bent without fear of breaking. Repose is as needful to the mind as sleep to the body. … It is wisdom to take occasional furlough. In the long run, we shall do more by sometimes doing less. On, on, on for ever, without recreation may suit spirits emancipated from this ‘heavy clay’, but while we are in this tabernacle, we must every now and then cry halt, and serve the Lord by holy inaction and consecrated leisure. Let no tender conscience doubt the lawfulness of going out of harness for a while….”
So I got from CHS that we’re to work so hard that if we die early that will be great…and then take a break for a bit.
Another reason why we should listen to great men like Spurgeon, and Sean I do think that are pretty close to working that hard. If only I came close.