Burden Bearing | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 23, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 49.

Burden Bearing.

THE idea of patiently bearing the ills and encountering the calamities of life as the dispensations of Providence intended for our good and of which we are to make a proper use, is something the worldly-minded cannot entertain, and against which even the Christian will sometimes revolt. But it is a truth, taught frequently and impressively in the word of God, and the experience of which has borne rich fruitage in the history of many of the most excellent of the earth. "All things work together for good to them that love God." It was a great attainment when the apostle was able to say: "I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound; everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."

But owing to the selfishness which is such a marked and strong feature of human nature, it is still more difficult to feel it a duty and make it a pleasure to exercise self-denial and to bear burdens for others. Yet this is the law of Christ, to be obeyed equally with all his other commands. In this he has given us in his own person the most illustrious example. He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. He gave himself for us. He bare our sins in his own body on the tree. In this we are to imitate him in our conduct towards others. "Every man shall bear his own burden;" but we are also told, "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." In the "English Pulpit of To-day," Rev. A. Wallace Williamson, St. Cuthbert's Church, Edinburgh, truly says:—

"To this it is, my brethren, that the law of Christ calls you. You must renounce your own will, and bow to the will of God. You must give up your own freedom, and find it in a greater and nobler freedom. You must bear the burdens of others or you cannot bear your own. You must lose your own life if you would truly save it. And when the fire of divine charity burns within you, and you behold the need of your fellow-men by the light of that flame, then only are you born to the true life of man, showing that divine life which quenches the sense of suffering self in the ardors of an ever-growing love; a love which is within you as a mighty yearning, which can no more exist alone than the branch apart from the vine, or the member from the body; which sends you forth with a divine excitement to deeds of active love, to a growing sense of brotherhood, to bear the burden of your fellows, and so to live, if need be, to agonize and die, to rise to that higher life which throbs through your soul—as the life of the vine is shed through the branches and the life of the body through the members—and you are no longer a withered branch bearing no fruit, nor a useless member, nor a stone out of place, but a living stone in that living temple which is the type of glorified humanity, that temple of which Christ is the chief corner-stone, 'in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.'"

Here is comfort and encouragement for those who are often discouraged and almost cast down by the cares and perplexities in which they are often involved because of others, and when toiling almost to exhaustion in behalf of those whom they love, but who have been overtaken with disaster in some of its many forms. They are treading in Christ's footsteps and doing the work that he did; let them seek to feel and manifest the same spirit that filled his heart and shone forth in all that he did, notwithstanding the "contradiction of sinners" and the infirmities and weaknesses and shortcomings of his own followers.

And if we cannot deny ourselves; if we are unwilling to do our part in bearing the burdens of others; if we cannot mourn with those who mourn and weep with those who weep, we give strong evidence that we do not belong to Christ. If we do not the works which he did, and in the same spirit, how can we claim to be his?—Presbyterian Banner.