No Other Happiness

The next day he [John the Baptist] saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

John 1:29 ESV

At the Desiring God Blog, their editors are discussing sentences that have changed their lives. Not books, but sentences. John Piper speaks of a few lines that have caused him to repent, gain vision, and/or renewed passion. The sentence below is one that has never been far from me: written in almost every Bible I own. It sums up the Christian life for me: our joyful job is to point everyone to the Loving Lamb. This quote of Nicholas Zinzendorf, the leader of the Moravian missions movement, is one long sentence which has helped me keep Jesus front and center in my Christian life (2 Cor. 11:3):

Our method of proclaiming salvation is this: to point out to every heart the loving Lamb, who died for us, and although He was the Son of God, offered Himself for our sins … by the preaching of His blood, and of His love unto death, even the death of the cross, never, either in discourse or in argument, to digress even for a quarter of an hour from the loving Lamb: to name no virtue except in Him, and from Him and on His account, to preach no commandment except faith in Him; no other justification but that He atoned for us; no other sanctification but the privilege to sin no more; no other happiness but to be near Him, to think of Him and do His pleasure; no other self denial but to be deprived of Him and His blessings; no other calamity but to displease Him; no other life but in Him.

Nicholas Ludwig Count Von Zinzendorf quoted in Moravian Church Miscellany (Bethlehem, PA: The Church of the United Brethren, 1852), 234.

The Loving Lamb

nicolaus_ludwig_zinzendorf

Point Out to Every Heart the Loving Lamb

The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29 ESV).

Our method of proclaiming salvation is this: to point out to every heart the loving Lamb, who died for us, and although He was the Son of God, offered Himself for our sins … by the preaching of His blood, and of His love unto death, even the death of the cross, never, either in discourse or in argument, to digress even for a quarter of an hour from the loving Lamb: to name no virtue except in Him, and from Him and on His account, to preach no commandment except faith in Him; no other justification but that He atoned for us; no other sanctification but the privilege to sin no more; no other happiness but to be near Him, to think of Him and do His pleasure; no other self denial but to be deprived of Him and His blessings; no other calamity but to displease Him; no other life but in Him.

Nicholas Ludwig Count Von Zinzendorf cited in Moravian Church Miscellany (Bethlehem, PA: The Church of the United Brethren, 1852), 234.