PRACTICAL TOPICS by C. C. L.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 21, 1882

PRACTICAL TOPICS.

By C. C. L.

1. Give an account of thy stewardship.—A most wholesome doctrine is that which teaches our accountability to God for the right use of the powers he has given us. Let me know that my abilities are but intrusted to my care to be used for God's glory and his creatures' good; let me grasp the fact that the debasing of my mental, moral, or physical powers to unworthy ends, the squandering of wealth that might relieve want, or the hoarding of means that might spread the truth, is in plain terms an embezzlement of things intrusted to my care; let me believe that I shall be called to account for my stewardship,—and, if I am an honest man desiring to do right, I shall so carefully and faithfully guard my conduct, that my Master may say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

The ability to make money is God-given, and for its proper use we shall be held as responsible as for any other gift. “Do all to the glory of God,” applies to the use of wealth as well as to other matters.

2. Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness.—Riches give their possessor the power of doing good. He may so use them as to lay up treasure in Heaven. Ability to accumulate wealth is a valuable gift. Money is necessary to the preaching of the gospel, and to the carrying on of all charitable and religious enterprises; and who shall say that the men who from right motives furnish the means to sustain the message, are not as worthy of reward as those who proclaim it?

“Riches,” says Bacon, “are the baggage of virtue; they cannot be spared nor left behind, but they hinder the march.”

In a sense this is true; but it is certain that the onward march of our cause, so far from being impeded, could with profit carry quite an amount of such baggage.

Again Bacon says: “He that defers his charity till he is dead, is (if a man weighs it rightly) rather liberal of another man's than of his own.” Having clung to his riches through life, his grip is relaxed by death; and, fear directing his loosening fingers over the lap of charity, the poor man lets fall with reluctance the gold he can no longer call his own. “Be your own executor.”

3. The true riches.—Gold has no intrinsic value; it is good only as it ministers to man's necessities.

Money does not constitute the “true riches.” Let us be convinced of this; and let us remember that those only are truly rich who are rich in faith and rich toward God, rich in Christ, in the promises and in the hope of eternal life.

Let us, then, not be deceived by the “mammon of unrighteousness,” but seek the “true riches.” Let us “lay up our treasures in Heaven.” Let us esteem the formation of noble character above the treasures of the world. Let us—

“Follow the Christ, the King, Live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the King— Else, wherefore born?”

C. C. L.

PRACTICAL TOPICS.*

PRACTICAL TOPICS.