p. 725 | A Desire to do Good by Independent

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 2, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 46.

A Desire to do Good.

By Independent

The word which best designates the Christian character is consecration. That is its first fruit, because it is its best definition. Of Christ we are told, first negatively, that he pleased not himself. Then we are told affirmatively that he went about doing good. The two together, self-abnegation and doing good to others, make up the simple, grand quality of Christian consecration.

We suppose there never was a case of Christian conversion in which the first evidence of it was not the desire to do good. The first question asked by Saul of Tarsus was, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" Asking that question transformed him into the apostle Paul, into the missionary, the sent one, for the word apostle means missionary, or sent. And the long succession of modern apostles have been stirred by this same enthusiasm of consecration to doing good, and have held themselves strenuously to this service, and have won its crown.

There is no mystery about this transformation beyond what comes in the influence of lofty motives welcomed to the soul. The consecration to such service is most natural and reasonable. It is unnatural only as sin and selfishness have made nature itself unnatural. A man's own conscience bids him do good. Every other man's conscience approves it. God commands it. The example of the love of Christ enforces it. The Spirit of God impresses it. Then the soul accepts the duty, and finds a happiness higher than it had ever before known, even in hard service of doing good.

Here are the fruits by which the Christian is known. This is by which every one shall be judged. It is not universal and miscellaneous undirected good-doing that will be required of us; but good-doing in the narrow directions for which our faculties fit us, and of which we are capable. Christ left something for us to do. And to each of us he has left his special task of good-doing. We shall not find it difficult to discover what it is, if we really have the consecration of heart.—Independent.