December 4

December 4.

"Having loved His own who were in the world-He loved them unto the end!" John 13:1

His own! How sweet the words are! They tell of a close and most sacred relation. His own! We belong to him, not simply as property-but in the ownership of love. "You are not your own, for you are bought with a price." The prints of the nails-tell of the cost of our redemption. We are "His own" because the Father gave us to Him. "They were Yours-and You gave them to Me!" Then we are "His own" because we have voluntarily given ourselves to Him. That is what you did when you became a Christian. You accepted the love that claimed you.

The relation is like that between two friends. The world cannot intermeddle. It is a close, personal relation. All believers are Christ’s own-but there is a sense in which each one has all of Christ for himself. We all sit down at the same communion table and the banner of love is over all; yet each one has a whole communion of his own. The sun shines upon the broad field and bathes all the million grass-blades and flowers in his beams. But each blade and each flower can say, "The sun is mine; he shines for me!" Christ’s love is for all his church; but the smallest of his little ones can say, "He is my Friend, my Savior, my Master!" "We are Christ’s own." All of Christ is ours-all of his love and all of his grace.