Kept for the Master's Use

by Frances Ridley Havergal

1. His Life ‘for thee!’ ‘The Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep.’ Oh, wonderful gift! not promised, but given; not to friends, but to enemies. Given without condition, without reserve, without return. Himself unknown and unloved, His gift unsought and unasked, He gave His life for thee; a more than royal bounty—the greatest gift that Deity could devise. Oh, grandeur of love! ‘I lay down My life for the sheep!’ And we for whom He gave it have held back, and hesitated to give our lives, not even for Him (He has not asked us to do that), but to Him! But that is past, and He has tenderly pardoned the unloving, ungrateful reserve, and has graciously accepted the poor little fleeting breath and speck of dust which was all we had to offer. And now His precious death and His glorious life are all ‘for thee.’

2. His Eternity ‘for thee.’ All we can ask Him to take are days and moments—the little span given us as it is given, and of this only the present in deed and the future in will. As for the past, in so far as we did not give it to Him, it is too late; we can never give it now! But His past was given to us, though ours was not given to Him. Oh, what a tremendous debt does this show us!

Away back in the dim depths of past eternity, ‘or ever the earth and the world were made,’ His divine existence in the bosom of His Father was all ‘for thee,’ purposing and planning ‘for thee,’ receiving and holding the promise of eternal life ‘for thee.’

Then the thirty-three years among sinners on this sinful earth: do we think enough of the slowly-wearing days and nights, the heavy-footed hours, the never-hastening minutes, that went to make up those thirty-three years of trial and humiliation? We all know how slowly time passes when suffering and sorrow are near, and there is no reason to suppose that our Master was exempted from this part of our infirmities.

Then His present is ‘for thee.’ Even now He ‘liveth to make intercession;’ even now He ‘thinketh upon me;’ even now He ‘knoweth,’ He ‘careth,’ He ‘loveth.’

Then, only to think that His whole eternity will be ‘for thee!’ Millions of ages of unfoldings of all His love, and of ever new declarings of His Father’s name to His brethren. Think of it! and can we ever hesitate to give all our poor little hours to His service?

3. His Hands ‘for thee.’ Literal hands; literally pierced, when the whole weight of His quivering frame hung from their torn muscles and bared nerves; literally uplifted in parting blessing. Consecrated, priestly hands; ‘filled’ hands (Ex. xxviii. 41, xxix. 9, etc., margin)—filled once with His great offering, and now with gifts and blessings ‘for thee.’ Tender hands, touching and healing, lifting and leading with gentlest care. Strong hands, upholding and defending. Open hands, filling with good and satisfying desire (Ps. civ. 28, and cxlv. 16). Faithful hands, restraining and sustaining. ‘His left hand is under my head, and His right hand doth embrace me.’

4. His Feet ‘for thee.’ They were weary very often, they were wounded and bleeding once. They made clear footprints as He went about doing good, and as He went up to Jerusalem to suffer; and these ‘blessed steps of His most holy life,’ both as substitution and example, were ‘for thee.’ Our place of waiting and learning, of resting and loving, is at His feet. And still those ‘blessed feet’ are and shall be ‘for thee,’ until He comes again to receive us unto Himself, until and when the word is fulfilled, ‘They shall walk with Me in white.’

5. His Voice ‘for thee.’ The ‘Voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love;’ the Voice that His sheep ‘hear’ and ‘know,’ and that calls out the fervent response, ‘Master, say on!’ This is not all. It was the literal voice of the Lord Jesus which uttered that one echoless cry of desolation on the Cross ‘for thee,’ and it will be His own literal voice which will say, ‘Come, ye blessed!’ to thee. And that same tender and ‘glorious Voice’ has literally sung and will sing ‘for thee.’ I think He consecrated song for us, and made it a sweet and sacred thing for ever, when He Himself ‘sang an hymn,’ the very last thing before He went forth to consecrate suffering for us. That was not His last song. ‘The Lord thy God ... will joy over thee with singing.’ And the time is coming when He will not only sing ‘for thee’ or ‘over thee,’ but with thee. He says He will! ‘In the midst of the church will I sing praise unto Thee.’ Now what a magnificent glimpse of joy this is! ‘Jesus Himself leading the praises of His brethren,’^[7] and we ourselves singing not merely in such a chorus, but with such a leader! If ‘singing for Jesus’ is such delight here, what will this ‘singing with Jesus’ be? Surely song may well be a holy thing to us henceforth.

6. His Lips ‘for thee.’ Perhaps there is no part of our consecration which it is so difficult practically to realize, and in which it is, therefore, so needful to recollect?—‘I also for thee.’ It is often helpful to read straight through one or more of the Gospels with a special thought on our mind, and see how much bears upon it. When we read one through with this thought—‘His lips for me!’—wondering, verse by verse, at the grace which was poured into them, and the gracious words which fell from them, wondering more and more at the cumulative force and infinite wealth of tenderness and power and wisdom and love flowing from them, we cannot but desire that our lips and all the fruit of them should be wholly for Him. ‘For thee’ they were opened in blessing; ‘for thee’ they were closed when He was led as a lamb to the slaughter. And whether teaching, warning, counsel, comfort, or encouragement, commandments in whose keeping there is a great reward, or promises which exceed all we ask or think—all the precious fruit of His lips is ‘for thee,’ really and truly meant ‘for thee.’