Leading Questions Relating to Christian Experience
By F. M. W.
1. Do you read and study the Word of God daily? You partake daily of physical food. You feel that your body needs this, and indeed it does. If you were to go for a single day without food, you would feel the lack of nourishment. Does not your soul need daily nourishment in the same way? Reading the Word of God two or three hours on the Sabbath will not make up for the lack during the week, any more than a large weekly meal would supply your physical needs for seven days. 2. Do you have family prayer? There are many professed Christians who do not, and there are some Seventh-day Adventist families where this good old-time practice has fallen into disuse. What is your experience? Are you so crowded with your business, with the cares of your farm or shop or office, that you have no time to gather the members of your family around the family altar? Failing in this, how can you expect God to work for your sons and daughters? With what confidence can you seek him to work for their salvation when you fail to cooperate with him? 3. Do you seek God by yourself every day? You cannot depend upon family worship to maintain your connection with heaven. You cannot depend upon the chapel worship in any institution with which you are connected. The battles with self are fought out alone with God. Are you fighting these battles, and are you gaining victories? There are many members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church who are neglecting this daily personal communion. Even ministers have many times acknowledged that they were recreant in this Christian duty and privilege. The measure of our strength will be in direct proportion as we find daily, personal communion with the Lord Jesus. 4. Have you put forth during the last few weeks definite personal labor for some soul? How many readers of the REVIEW can answer this question in the affirmative? Have you felt a definite burden of heart to pray for some one in need; for the unconverted? Have you endeavored to encourage some brother or sister, or to reclaim the cold or the indifferent? These are leading questions that relate to your Christian life, and by their answers you may determine in some measure the state of your experience. They are simple means by which you may maintain a vital connection with the living Vine. If you have no love for the Bible, no love for prayer, no love for souls, do not deceive yourself into believing that you are enjoying a living Christian experience. You are not. Your Christianity is a mere form, a pretense, a hollow mockery. “Prayer is the Christian’s native breath; The Christian’s native air.” If you love the Lord, you will love to commune with him, the same as you love to commune with your dearest friend. If you love the Lord, you will love to read the messages he has for you in his Word, the same as you love to read letters from absent loved ones. If you love the Lord, you will love those for whom he gave his life, and will love to unite with him in securing their salvation. How may this experience of love and joy in Christian service be obtained? It will come through surrender of self, through full and complete consecration. To seek to grasp Christ with one hand while we are laying hold of the world with the other, to be obliged to force ourselves to pray, to study his Word, to seek to help our fellows, because we feel that the condemnation of God will rest upon us if we do not,—this is servitude; this is bondage; this is the old covenant relationship. God wants to set us free in Christ Jesus. He desires to give us such an infilling of his love and Spirit that we shall delight in his service; that obedience to his requirements will constitute the chief joy of our existence; that we shall take even the spoiling of our goods joyfully, because we sacrifice them for One we love and for One who loves us. For this service of love let us pray.