Called to Go.


There are a number of invitations He used in calling men. It was as though
in His eagerness He used every sort that might go home. And yet there was
more than this; these invitations are like successive steps up into the
life He wanted them to have. He said, "Come unto Me."[28] This was always
the first, and still remains first. It led, and it leads, into rest of
heart and life, peace with God. He quickly followed it with "Come ye after
Me."[29] They must come to Him before they could come after Him. This was
found to mean discipleship, learning the road. He would "make" them like
Himself in going after others. He said, "take My yoke upon you."[30]This
meant a bending down to get into the yoke, a surrender of will and heart
to Himself, and then partnership, fellowship side-by-side with Himself.

Then He spoke another word to the innermost circle, on the night in which
He was betrayed. He had a long talk that evening with the eleven around
the supper table, and walking down to the grove of olives at the Brook of
the Cedars.[31] Several times that evening He used this new word, "abide,"
"abide in Me." That means staying with Him, not leaving, living
continuously with Him. It means a continued separation from anything that
would separate from Him. And then it means a fulness of life coming from
Himself into us as we draw all our life from Himself, a rich ripeness, a
rounded maturity, a depth of life, and these always becoming
more,--richer, rounder, deeper.

Then after the awful days of the cross were past, on the evening of the
resurrection day, in the upper room with ten of the inner disciples, He
practically said, "You be Myself"; "as the Father sent Me, even so send I