Editorial by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 29, 1909

Editorial

By Editor

The Motive of Labor

WHEN the disciples urged Christ to partake of the food they had procured for him, he said, “I have meat to eat that ye know not of.” They questioned if others had brought him food. He then made clearer to them his meaning: “My meat is to do the will of him who sent me, and to finish his work.” Christ, while on earth, required food, the same as his disciples. But his temporal necessities were matters of secondary importance and consideration. They were a means to an end merely, not that for which he labored. His delight came not in the satisfaction of the appetite, or of any temporal or physical enjoyment, but in doing the will of his Father. Ps. 40: 8. The motive power behind his labor, the inspiration which moved him in his work, was love. This enabled him to brave the dangers of his mission, to bear its burdens, to endure its toils and privations. Some kind of motive power prompts all human effort. With some it is love, with others fear or selfishness. And the labor is gauged by this controlling principle, and life with its trials and perplexities is vitalized, and made beautiful, or it becomes a drudgery, a slavish, galling bondage and servitude. Christ operating in the experience can make life beautiful, because all service will be rendered as unto him, and love will make light the burdens, and sweet the bitter drafts, and put into the heart a song of praise and rejoicing. Then the disciple may say, as did the Master, “My meat is to do the will of him who sent me, and to finish his work.”