Using or Abusing God’s Blessings by C. M., S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 2, 1910

Using or Abusing God’s Blessings

By C. M., S.

God’s hands, with blessings full, are reached out to us day and night. It is a matter of the utmost importance how we relate ourselves to them, whether we receive to hoard or receive to give again. It is a test of character. It shows our likeness or unlikeness to the divine Pattern; it shows whether we agree or disagree with the divine purpose.

Some take that they may give again, and some give that they may get again. The difference here is an infinite one. The one is in the order of God; the other is the inspiration of self-service. It is a test which shows whether we belong to the kingdom of light or of darkness.

It is right to give; it is right to take. The right or wrong of our course depends upon how we take and why, how we give and why. We can give that which is good—give it for the good it will do, give it that he to whom it is given may pass it along, so letting the good deed flow along like a silvery stream through a thirsty land, blessing and re-blessing, cheering the dreary wastes of discouragement, and encouraging the heart crushed under a weight of woe. Or we can give that which is evil — give by our example as well as by the gift of material things — and see that gift take its course down through the world like a stream of lava from a destructive volcano, searing, burning, and burying everything in its path. We can give the unkind word, repeat the unkind story, and see it go on its way like a pestilence stalking through our neighborhood, leaving behind it crushed hearts and ruined hopes.

The Christian will want to ask himself frequently whether he is taking the good gifts of God to use in helping and encouraging others, thus giving again what God has given him, making a continuous current of blessing; or whether he is hoarding those gifts to himself, to gather the rust of pride and the moth of jealousy, thus choking up the current of good which God designed should flow from the reception of his beneficences. Which is it?

Sin is the interference of lawlessness with God’s great purpose. If we hoard to our own use and purpose the blessings of which God has made us stewards, we are thwarting the purpose of the Infinite—to do which is sin, and to desire to do which is in itself rebellion. God could brush us out of his way as we brush a gnat from our window-pane; but his purpose is deeper, broader, holier than that. His purpose includes our triumph over sin as well as his. It includes the formation of a righteous character in us, and that must come by test and trial; and by these means we prove whether we are trustworthy of eternal life.

We are not compelled even to take the good. It is purely a matter of choice. We can choose the evil if we prefer, and not only that, but pass it along as well. Instead of making ourselves fountains of blessing because God’s purpose is flowing through us, we can turn our whole lives into fountains of poison like the death springs of the desert, around whose deceptive brinks lie the death-smitten forms of those who came there to drink. Which shall it be? We can make it whichever we will. We can choose life or death for ourselves, and we can be the minister of either to others. It depends upon what we take, and why we take it; what we give, and why we give it.

But we must have divine wisdom if we would be certain that at every turn we shall make the life choice rather than the death choice. The importance of choosing aright it is impossible to overestimate. To choose aright is to be on the side of God and victory and eternal life; to choose wrong, is to be on the side of God’s adversary and ultimate defeat and eternal death. In implicit reliance upon God and obedience to him there is infinite wisdom and assured

guidance for us. The ear of Heaven is always open, the arm of Heaven always outstretched, in behalf of those who are firmly set to do God’s will. If we place ourselves on his side, in the channel of his power, in harmony with his purpose, he will make every soul of us instruments of service to be powerfully used in heralding his truth to the ends of the earth. The quicker and more completely this people consecrate themselves to the work of God’s last mighty message, the sooner shall we know the joys of the eternal world. Let us give for the good it will do, and take of God’s good things that we may help others to know them, and so share in the triumphant work and the reward of the triumphant workers.

C. M., S.