A Greater Honor

It is a greater honor to serve Christ in the most menial capacity than to occupy the throne of the Caesars. I speak of honor, I may also dilate [i.e., expand] upon the happiness of the service of Jesus! It is the purest of pleasures. We long to express our affection for Jesus by acts of zeal. Love pants for expression, and is not obedience the tongue of love? That love is feigned which does not declare itself in some practical form or other, by deeds of kindness, or gifts, or sacrifices, or patient endurance, or hearty praise. 

Beloved, let us count it an unrivalled honor and an unsurpassed delight to do anything for Jesus. For this service let us be insatiably ambitious, resolved at all costs to show our loyalty to our Prince. To serve us he laid aside his glorious array, and girt about him the garments of a servant; for us he took a basin and towel and stooped to wash his disciples’ feet; for us he became obedient to death, even the death of the cross: now, therefore, in our turn, by all the shame he bore, by all the labor he endured, by all the agonies he suffered, let us serve him and him alone for ever.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "All For Jesus," delivered November 29, 1874. Image by Bert Kaufmann on Flickr under Creative Commons License.