Our Supreme Motive by L. F. STARR

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 22, 1908

Our Supreme Motive

By L. F. STARR

L. F. STARR

The great apostle to the Gentiles gives us the secret of his wonderful missionary activity when he exclaims, “The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, . . . that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.” Here we have the supreme motive of our mission in the world. The apostle realized just what every child of God must realize, in order to be a child of God,—that he has been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, and, therefore, belongs to him. A Christian, by the very terms of that expression, is one who does not own himself; he belongs to Christ, and must henceforth live, not for himself, but for Christ, who died for him and rose again. When a man once crosses the “henceforth” of that declaration, he is like the man who has crossed the watershed of a continent. Before he crossed it, the streams all flowed toward himself; after he crossed it, they all flowed the other way—from him. Before a man becomes a servant of God, all his plans and desires flow toward himself, center in himself;

but after he becomes a Christian, they all flow out to Christ and a perishing world. He is dead to all self-seeking; to everything that pertains to his own personal advancement and self-interest. He has been redeemed,—purchased by the precious blood of Christ,—and not only belongs to Christ, but because of his redemption, owes Christ a debt. Therefore Paul, in his letter to the Romans, says, “I am a debtor both to the Greeks, and to the barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise.” What did Paul mean? He had received nothing from the Greeks and barbarians, except persecution and abuse, and, therefore, as the world would say to-day, he was under no obligation to them; and yet he says, regardless of the treatment he had received from them, “I am a debtor” to them. He realized that he owed Christ an infinite debt, and that Christ had made his debt payable to the needy and destitute everywhere—to every one who needed the gospel.

As with Paul, so with you and me. We owe Christ an infinite debt. This debt we can not pay back to Christ in silver and gold, or merely by attending church occasionally, or by singing praises, or by eulogizing him in prayer; but he has made our debt payable to the lost and needy—all nations upon the earth. Every human being has a claim upon us—we are a debtor to all.

The benighted millions of China, Japan, India, Africa, and the isles of the sea have a claim upon us. “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” He who is truly converted to the principles of the gospel of Christ, will in turn spend all he has and be spent in the blessed cause of redemption to help others to find the pearl of great price. The child of God is his representative; and “inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” What we do for others is reckoned as being done to Christ, and is credited on our debt.

The question is asked, Will not the heathen be saved without the gospel message? A more important question is, Will you and I be saved unless we do all we can to give them the gospel? Unless we love men with a love growing out of love to God, we are not saved; we have no evidence that we have passed from death unto life. “Whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?” Here, then, is the motive for our work. When we look upon the world as we find it to-day, after its centuries of boasted progress, depraved, besotted, bewitched, and full of sin, we at once comprehend the vastness of the work to be done. We must look up to Christ our only hope, and realize our relations to him, and strengthen ourselves anew with these great bed-rock principles of Christian work. It is only as we do so that we can have the necessary inspiration for our work. When we come to deal with the many phases of the work as we find them, how can any man act his part in proclaiming the last message unless he realizes his relation to Christ as a redeemed man?

Take, as an illustration, the great apostle to the Gentiles, who led the van of the army of the cross, stormed the strongholds of sin and Satan, and planted the standard of the gospel in the very citadel of idolatry: what was it that kindled the fire of his enthusiasm? It was an intelligent realization of his relations to Christ and humanity as a redeemed man. He looked to the cross of Calvary, and saw the Son of God suspended there, and armed himself with the same mind, and exclaimed, The love of Christ constraineth me. He suffered the loss of all things, and became all things to all men, that if by any means he might save some. The great secret of his power was the constraining love of Christ. It produced an absolute surrender of all he had and was to Christ, a consecration that has been the marvel of the ages. He suffered and toiled for Christ’s sake. In all his heroic devotion and self-consuming zeal, his obligations were no greater than ours. His life, his spirit, his purpose, was an exemplification of what ours should be.

Takoma Park, D. C.