Love is the Power of the Cross

What is it that makes the young man devote himself, as a missionary, to the cause of God, to leave father and mother, and go into distant lands? It is a thing of power that does it; it is the gospel. What is it that constrains the far away minister, in the midst of cholera, to climb up that creaking staircase, and stand by the bed of some dying creature who has that tragic disease? It must be a thing of power which leads him to risk his life; it is love of the cross of Christ which urges him to do it. What is that which enables one man to stand up before a multitude of his fellows, all unprepared it may be, but determined that he will speak nothing but Christ, and Him crucified? What is it that enables him to cry, like the war horse of Job, in battle, Yes! and more glorious in might? It is a thing of power that does it—it is Christ crucified.
What encourages that timid female to walk down that dark road some wet evening, that she may go and sit by the victim of a contagious fever? What strengthens her to go through that den of thieves, and pass by the depraved and perverted? What influences her to enter into that house of death, and there sit down and whisper words of comfort? Does gold make her do it? They are to poor to give her gold. Does fame make her do it? She will never be known nor written among the mighty women of this earth. What makes her do it? What impels her to it? It is the power, the thing of power; it is the cross of Christ—she loves it, and she therefore says, Were the whole realm of nature mine, As a present it would be far too small; Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.
—Charles H. Spurgeon