What It Costs

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 16, 1902

“Does the Lord require me to give this up? Can I not be saved if I do not?”

Have you not often heard such questions? Perhaps you yourself have had similar thoughts. There is among many people a feeling that God is exacting; that he requires too much of us, and that he ought to be satisfied with less. Indeed, if people would analyze their thoughts, they would find an idea that God is really benefiting himself at their expense.

That this idea is actually held is shown by the words of Elihu to Job: “Thou saidst, My righteousness is more than God’s. For thou saidst, What advantage will it be unto thee? and, What profit shall I have, if I be cleansed from my sin? I will answer thee, and thy companions with thee. Look unto the heavens, and see; and behold the clouds which are higher than thou. If thou sinnest, what doest thou against him? or if thy transgressions be multiplied, what doest thou unto him? If thou be righteous, what givest thou him? or what receiveth he of thine hand? Thy wickedness may hurt a man as thou art; and thy righteousness may profit the son of man.” Job 35.

This thought, often unexpressed and half-unconscious, is nothing else than the reverberation of the subtle temptation by which the serpent caused the fall of Eve. With a contemptuous sarcasm he asked the question, “Hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” and then followed up this insinuation against God’s justice by boldly saying that there was no harm in eating from the forbidden tree; “for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, . . . ye shall be as God.” Thus he made her believe that it was unjust for God to require her to abstain from eating the fruit of that tree; that she was really being abused; and that God was profiting by their abstinence.

What now is the real truth in the case? Just this: that whenever we give up anything in obedience to God, we profit greatly at his expense. We talk about sacrifice, and what it costs us, foolishly forgetful of the fact that it is the Lord who has made the sacrifice, and the only real one that ever has been or can be made. Do you know what it costs the Lord every time you give up an evil habit?—Nothing less than his life. You think it will cost you your life, or at least all that life is worth, to give up that darling practice, yet in doing so you will find life in such rich measure and so full of joy as you never knew before, but it cost Christ’s heart’s blood to enable you to do it. Ah, never again let the shadow of the thought enter your mind, that God is causing you inconvenience to gratify himself. He is, on the contrary, giving you happiness at the cost of his own life.

In this lies our strength, and the assurance that nothing is impossible to us. God is really asking us to receive something, instead of to give up. He asks us to receive his life, in which there is no

shade of evil, and which is the very essence and fullness of light, and joy, and peace, in order that we may be delivered from that which is to us darkness, sorrow, misery, and death. And the fact that our deliverance from the bondage of evil habits costs the Lord his life, is the assurance of deliverance; for his life has proved victorious over every temptation. Then instead of murmuring about what we are required to give up, let us give thanks to God for his unspeakable gift.

“What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord.” Ps. 116: 12, 13. — Present Truth.