TO GOD'S GLORY by M. C. Wilcox

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 4, 1902

TO GOD'S GLORY.

By M. C. Wilcox

M. C. WILCOX.

It is a perversion of our Lord's words to declare that when He said, "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink" (Matt. 6: 25), He meant that the kind or quantity or quality of food mattered not. He taught that the end of our life should not be the gratifying of appetite. That is the thought of the worldling; that was the thought of the foolish rich man in Luke 12. "Soul," said he, "thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." That was his climax of life's purpose. His god was his appetite. It is against this that our Lord warns us. Do not put your anxious thought upon that which ministers to carnal desire; do not make a means of life the object.

Neither would He have us understand from the scripture just quoted and from kindred texts that eating and drinking are unimportant. Man was created for God's glory; he is made God's steward in the use of things by which God may be glorified; and the Holy Spirit gives this positive instruction: "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." 1 Cor. 10: 31.

The questions, therefore, which the Christian will ask concerning his food, are such as these: What will best glorify God? What is best adapted to the service which is His due from me? What will build me up the strongest, healthiest body? What will give me the most active brain, the clearest mind? What will render my senses the most impressible, the most sensitive, to the influence of His Spirit?

Having settled these questions by the principles of God's living truth, having more fully realized in their settlement the great purpose of existence, it will not be difficult to decide what kinds of food, how much food, and what quality of food we shall use.

That which will best glorify God will separate from the lust for the fleshpots of Egypt, from the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. In other words, eating will be a matter of life, and not of lust. Eating to glorify God, we may ask and expect His blessing upon the means used to His glory.

Eating and drinking will also be enjoyable. Keen and appreciative will be the appetite; sweet and delicious the simple foods of God's furnishing. How much anxiety would be saved, how much blessing would come, did we but eat and drink to the Master's glory.