If You Love Me…
by Norman Grubb

"If you love me, you will obey what I command"-John 14:15

At Leicester C.T. Studd and Stanley Smith met F.B. Meyer, who wrote later: "The visit of Messrs. Stanley Smith and Studd to Melbourne Hall will always mark an epoch in my own life. Before then my Christian life had been spasmodic and fitful; now flaming up with enthusiasm, and then pacing wearily over leages of gray ashes and cold cinders. I saw that these young men had something which I had not, but which was within them a constant source of rests and strength and joy.  Never shall I forget a scene at 7 a.m. in the gray mist of a November morning, as daylight was flickering into the bedroom, paling the guttering candles, which from a very early hour had, been lighting up the Scriptures and revealing the figures of the devoted Bible students, who wore the old cricket or boating blazer of earlier days, to render them less sensible to the raw, damp climate. The talk we had then was one of the formative influences of my life. ‘You have been up early’ I said to Charlie Studd. ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘I got up at four o’clock this morning. christ always knows when I have had sleep enough, and He wakes me to have a good time with Him.’ I asked, ‘What have you been doing this morning?’ And he replied, ‘You know that the Lord said, If ye love Me, keep My commandments; and I was just looking through all the commandments that I could find and putting a tick against them if I have kept them, because I do love Him.’"

F.B. Meyer continued: "’How can I be like you?’ C.T. Studd replied, ‘Have you ever given yourself to Christ, for Christ to fill you?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I have done so in a general way, but I don’t know that I have done it particularly.’ He answered, ‘You must do it particularly also.’ I knelt down that night and thought I could give myself to Christ as easily as possible. I habe Him an iron ring, the iron ring of my will, with all the keys of my life on it, except one little key that I kept back. Adnt he Master said, ‘Are they all here?’ I said, ‘They are all there but one, the key of a tiny closet in my heart, of which I must keep control.’ He said, ‘If you don’t trust Me in all, you don’t trust Me at all.’ I tried to make terms; I said, ‘Lord, I will be so devoted in everything else, but I can’t live without the contents of that closet.’ I believe that my whole life was just hovering in the balance. He seemed to be receding from me, and I called Him back and said, ‘I am not willing, but I am willing to be made willing.’ It seemed as though He came near and took that key out of my hand, and went straight for the closet. I knew what He would find there, and He knew too. Within a week from that time He had cleared it right out. But He filled it with something so much better.

–Summit Living