This was how he grew in spiritual
strength and nobleness. Alexander Smiley, The Hour of
Silence, 1899. Do nothing out of selfish ambition
or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only
to your own interests, but also to the interests of others."
Philippians 2, 3 and 4. Did Paul live a depressed and
dismayed life because he was perpetually denying himself out
of love for others? Not at all. The very reverse
is true. This was how he grew in spiritual
strength and nobleness. The discipline prospered his
own soul. It gave him wisdom and insight. It gave him courage and endurance. It gave him sympathy and considerateness. It gave him deep restfulness
and glowing joy. By it he gained inward vigor
and the glow of spiritual health and spiritual life in its fire
and force and fullness. And this was how He won the hearts
of men and women. They saw that His was a yearning
tenderness for them, which made Him unconcerned for His own comforts. And so others were conquered
and melted and led willing prisoners to the Lord Jesus. He drew them
by the magnetism of His love for them, and they followed on. And this was how he learned the
secret of fellowship with Christ, even Christ did not please Himself. Romans 15, 3. The servant Paul
came very close to the Master, and the Master to the servant,
just as the servant took up his cross and gloried in it as he
carried it in his arms. His little lamp was lighted from
the flame around the Savior's sacrifice. So Paul lived in a
noble place, because he looked perpetually not on his own interests,
but on the interests of others. Let me master this truth. I shall
never regret the surrender and sacrifice of my desires and interests. It is for my own good, as well
as my Lord's wish and will.