p. 11 | W. E. HANCOCK by W. E. HANCOCK

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 21, 1915

W. E. HANCOCK

By W. E. HANCOCK

The Motives of Service — No. 1

W. E. HANCOCK

Motives and Not Amount

MOTIVE and not amount is the measure of every human action, according to the divine rule. The widow’s mite, being an expression of unselfish sacrifice, is more in God’s sight than the millions of the miser given to ease a guilty conscience or cajole an expectant public. Her offering was given in the love which vaunteth not itself. To suppose that she cast her all into the treasury or that Mary anointed the Saviour’s feet for the praise which might be gained thereby, would rob those deeds of merit as good works. These acts were justly commended by Jesus because they were actuated by the Christian motive of service.

Necessity of Judging One’s Own Motives

It is not the Christian right of any man to judge the motives of another; but it is the first and highest duty of every one to consider the motives governing his own actions. In accepting Christian service, what are my motives? Is it the spirit of barter or personal profit? Is it merely to escape condemnation and save my own soul? Is it to avoid doubt and gain intellectual ease or temporal happiness? Is it merely to ease conscience and gain a passive peace? These are imperative questions which press themselves upon every Christian today. They ought to be considered honestly and answered conscientiously by every Seventh-day Adventist.

The Christian Attitude Toward Criticism of Motives

The oft-repeated accusations of critics that these unseemly motives actuate many professed Christians, may have some foundation. It is lamentable to read and hear the apologies offered and the denials given against these accusations. Nothing is gained by beggarly apologizing or indignantly denying. Let us face the charge of the accuser with an honest test of our motives. Job’s comforters turned out to be his accusers, who sought to convince him of evil motives.

After seeing God, Job’s view of himself was abhorrent. “I have heard thee by the ear,” he says, “but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” The theology prevalent at that time, and perhaps not entirely absent from the Christian church of our day, was that it paid to serve God; for otherwise calamity and unhappiness were sure to follow. Job’s view of God taught him to abominate such a conception of service.

The Church’s Need of a New Conception of Service

The church today needs to get a new view of God and of the motives of Christian service. This means that each individual Christian must learn by experience what Job learned and what sustained Jesus in making his supreme sacrifice for sin-stricken humanity. The lesson that their experience teaches is that righteousness and integrity are their own reward, no matter whether success and prosperity attend or not. Lincoln must have learned that lesson when he said, “I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to do right.” Job exclaimed, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” In the face of seeming defeat, Jesus’ dying words were, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” We see in each instance a sublime confidence in God’s eternal power and justice in spite of adverse providences. None of the religion of barter was found in Job’s experience. Although no temporal reward was held out to him, and unalleviable pain stretched before him, Job’s confidence in his religious experience remained unshaken.

Satan’s Contempt for Service Which Seeks Only Reward

Job learned that character must be built upon the eternal principles of right, that no external code of conduct or the profession of any category of theology could satisfy the soul in the moment of crisis. Satan looks with satisfied contempt upon a religion which does right for a reward. He has tried incessantly to fasten the stigma upon God’s servants that they would serve him for mere gain. Of course he is right in his contempt for such a religion, but he knows from long experience that that is not the only religion practiced by men.

One of Satan’s strongest efforts was to divert Christ’s mission and service into an expedition for temporal gain. The disciples of Jesus sought to press upon him this conception of service. But he invariably promised them bitter cups to drink and fierce baptisms wherewith to be baptized. When they talked of rewards, he offered them humble service mingled with persecution. Their principal task was to serve him for the good their service would do others. In proportion as they forgot temporal reward in this unselfish mission, would their rewards be great.

Experience in Christ’s Service Not Gained by Magic

This kind of experience is not attained by a magic stroke which accepts service for Christ at a revival in exchange for a future reward. All true service is its own reward, whether in heaven or on earth. The experience needed by the servant of Christ is gained by a joyful resignation to follow God’s leading, no matter where it takes him. It may be through disappointments or disillusionment of partial or mistaken conceptions of truths; it may involve loss of every earthly treasure, as in the case of Job; or the brink of utter despair, as when Christ said, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” But let it be so if it takes us nearer to God. His chastenings are sweet to him who with patience waits upon God to reveal himself. It was not until Job had been tried and found faithful that he was permitted to see God.

Joy in the Christian service does not depend upon prosperity. To the contrary, oftentimes those who find life purposeless and insipid are only gorged with prosperity. The prosperity of the wicked does not afford satisfaction. Fellowship with God gives the only lasting joy. This remains when wife becomes faithless, friends turn disloyal, ideas of theology prove inadequate, and there is left only the assurance of a God of truth and justice upon whom to depend. Such was Job’s experience through which he found supreme blessedness. When he arrived at this point in his experience, neither the disasters of time, the loss of earthly love, nor the false theories and heartlessness of friends could shake his confidence.