SHOULD we take all things into consideration, it would be impossible for us to set the bounds of our indebtedness to God; and yet were we called to give an account of our stewardship, I am afraid that some of us would be found wanting. As a general thing, we are apt to be very delinquent in discharging this great debt. Reason teaches us that we owe everything to God, and inspiration tells us that “we are not our own,” we “are bought with a price,” and that price is the blood of Christ. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. “For ye are not your own.” What weighty words are these! With what power they go home to our hearts! God help us, that we may fully realize them. It is a great thing to make a full consecration, to lay all upon the altar, to be in the world, and yet not be of the world, and to dedicate ourselves, our time, and talents, and all that we have and are, to God and to his service. And why should we not do this? Where could we make a more profitable investment? It is an old and trite saying, concerning the pleasures of this world, and it is none the less true because trite, that “you cannot pluck a rose, and not be pricked by the thorn imbedded in its leaves.” But here is a blessing from the Lord “which maketh rich and addeth no sorrow therewith,” and that blessing is peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.
Perhaps of all the sacrifices that God claims at our hands, money is given by some the most grudgingly. “Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.” “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of Heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it. “Is not this the fast that I have chosen?” “Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? When thou seest the naked that thou cover him?” “Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily; and thy righteousness shall go before thee; and the glory of the Lord shall be thy rere-ward.” “Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am.”
How very near is God to those who willingly divide their substance, and how severe his denunciations against those who are hoarding their gold. “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasures together for the last days.” How many of us are laying up treasures in Heaven, and making sacrifices here for that priceless boon that shall be ours hereafter? In generations past when parents felt it to be a sacred duty to lay up for their children, it was more excusable; but what a lame apology have we to offer “on whom the ends of the world are come.” There will be no lots in the celestial city that we can buy to speculate on; no mill-power on that stream of water that floweth clear as crystal, from the throne of God. And when we are called to give up our account, it will not be asked whether we are rich or poor, but, Is the world any better for our having lived in it?