p. 147 | I’m so Unworthy by M. S. Irish

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 9, 1866

“I’m so Unworthy.”

By M. S. Irish

It is quite common, after a meeting at which the ordinances are celebrated, in answer to the remark, “You were not there,” to receive the reply, “I’m so unworthy.”

Now if we were invited to a feast by some worldly monarch, would we answer some friend who might inquire why we were not there, “I’m so unworthy?” Would we not rather rejoice that we were not considered unworthy by him who made the feast? If we have done a wrong of which we are not willing to repent, and are smitten by a guilty conscience, we had better stay away, truly, because we are so unworthy; but if we really believe that our Saviour instituted the ordinances, and said, “As oft as ye do this, ye do show forth the Lord’s death till he come,” and “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them,” would we stay away if we felt ever so unworthy? Peter doubtless felt his unworthiness when he told Jesus, “Thou shalt never wash my feet.” But when he answered, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me,” how soon he showed his true spirit by crying out, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.” How many of us, unwilling or careless about accepting the first privilege, wait till it is withdrawn from us, and we are left to weep and lament our half-heartedness. How like the Lord’s people of old, when they had almost gained the promised land, they feared, lest they should not be able to possess it, for which sin they were sent back, and wandered in the wilderness forty years, till almost every man and woman who started from Egypt perished. How much better influence we should exert, and how much happier we should be, to gladly receive the first privilege to obey, not in our own worthiness, but in the worthiness of Jesus; for we may have eternal life and “all things” through him. Glorious hope!

M. S. Irish.