The Service of Man, the Glory of God
By C. M. S.
It is the business of Christians, as well as their blessed privilege, to be workers together with God. He, through the centuries of the past, has been working for man. They who would be workers together with God must also be workers for man. To be in such service acceptably means the consecration of all the faculties of the being to the work of God. We often hear the expression: “I must look out for number one,” which means, I must look out for myself. Self is the first consideration. But the true and trusting Christian knows that his own interests are best served when he leaves them in the hands of God, and goes out in the service of others, looking out for their interests. There is an eternal increment thus added to the everlasting inheritance of men that can be attained in no other way. It is upon13this principle that “he that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord; and that which he hath given will he pay him again.” Prov. 19: 17. The faculties that are consecrated to God are fulfilling the purpose God had in mind when he endowed us with them. They are performing his work, and thus we who possess them are working “together with God.” But let us use those faculties for our own selfish ends, and we at once pervert his purpose. Then the exercise of those faculties becomes displeasing in the sight of God. They are stagnant water where springs and wells should be; deserts in the place of fruitful fields. The continued exercise of an unconsecrated faculty toward a selfish end works toward the final ruin of the soul. The rapidity with which that end is reached depends upon the number of faculties so used, and the extent to which the individual has abandoned the counsels of God’s Word. Many a man who should have been a steward for God has flung aside his scruples one by one, and has finally bent every faculty of his being toward the amassing of wealth for his own gratification. Such a one is, day by day, selling his eternal birthright for a mess of pottage, selling his soul for gold; and there is bound to come a time when that sale will be complete, when there will be no desire on the part of the individual to turn to God. Others endowed with a faculty for acquiring knowledge have perverted that faculty by turning it into unsanctified channels, or by using it for selfish interests or for gain, and have come to that place where the desire for the things of God is fast vanishing away. There will come a time when continuance in that course will entirely crush out all desire for participation in either the work of God or the promised blessings. The faculty perverted has sold the soul. It matters not how good the faculty, of how great worth in the cause of God, its perversion to selfish ends will bring ruin to the soul. Its consecration to God and his work will make its possessor a coworker with God, a sharer with him in the renewed universe, a dweller with him in the courts of heaven. We can not be too careful in the matter of the use to which we put the faculties with which we have been endowed by our Creator. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” He laid aside the glory of heaven that he might give himself to the service of men and the glory of God. “Go, and do thou likewise.” We have not the glory of heaven to lay aside, but we have a glorious inheritance to participate in if we turn aside from the allurements of this world of sin, and set our faces toward Zion’s hill in the service of God and our fellow men. Sacrifice and service are what God holds out before us now. To the man of the world, near-sighted through continual close scrutiny of his own wants and interests, it is foolishness; but to the trusting child of God it opens the gates of paradise and the long vistas of eternity. Consecrate your faculties to the service of God. There is no investment in this world that can compare with it.
C. M. S.