The Inner Life by A. S. Hutchins

S. D. A. Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 10, 1884

FromThe Signs of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 2

The Inner Life.

By A. S. Hutchins

“In proportion as the inner life is vivid, the outer life will be effective,” so in proportion as we lose a clear sense of our high and holy obligation to God, and suffer our hearts to grow cold, and our affections to attach themselves to the things of this world, will our influence for good be insufficient and powerless. Says the apostle, “Set your affection on things above, and not on things of the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”

How merciful, how compassionate, is our kind heavenly Parent, to devise the plan of salvation, whereby fallen, ruined, lost man, might, through obedience and faith, gain an endless life of ineffable bliss in the kingdom of God.

Here we may enter the service of our blessed Master, deny self, bear the daily cross, overcome the evil traits of our nature, grow in grace, sacrifice for the good of others, and soon wear a crown of glory, and forever reign with Christ. This thought is sufficient to thrill our entire being, to energize the soul, to give tone and force to the whole life. The earnest Christian feels he has a work to do, an object to accomplish. The glory of God and the salvation of precious souls absorb his mind, yea, inspire his soul with zeal and activity, and lead him out from the world, and up to a high standard of morality, Christianity, and usefulness. His mark is high. Successfully he aims to hit it.

Mark the contrast between this man and the purposeless professor. Mark his lack of devotion, his tardy pace heavenward. How heavily the golden moments hang upon his hands. He lives and acts as though a millennium were his in which to do good and get right.

Day after day, and month after month, see him in society, in the public gatherings and places of amusement, debate, strife, and contention, where in a long life he could not lead one soul to Christ. The godly mourn over him, while the sinner may censure his course.

Oh! how much better to spend the fast-passing moments of probation in the closet, in reading the word of God, in meditating upon the perfections of his spotless character; to labor to have our life “hid with Christ in God;” to gather a few souls to the bleeding, blessed Jesus, who shall eternally be stars in the overcomer’s crown.

Oh! for a vivid sense of the untold the unutterable, the matchless blessedness of denying self, of leading lives of usefulness, and of finally entering into the joy of the Lord. Oh! that both the writer and the reader may enter there.

A. S. HUTCHINS.