p. 11 | SEEING AND SERVING by N. Y. Observer

Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Jun 13, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 24.

SEEING AND SERVING.

By N. Y. Observer

JESUS communed with His Father in prayer on many a midnight mountain that He might go down and work for man in the valley. Indifference in Christian service is due to ignorance and opaqueness of vision. Nowhere are we so near men and man's need as when we are near God's heart. Here we touch all humanity, and can love the distant and degraded races of earth as much as the needy at our own door. Conviction is born of knowledge, knowledge of actual sight. A suffering child before our eyes stirs us more than the starving and dying millions of India. It is because the child is near. But when we are near the heart-beat of God, no needy soul is far away, and indifference is impossible.

A good watchword for the Christian would be: See in order to serve. See man as God sees him, his sin, his need, his peril. Passion for service is born only in sight of the cross. Missionaries and martyrs get their inspiration from Him whose sacrifice reveals and measures the world's need. Luthers catch their zeal from Him. Wesley, Whitefield, Spurgeon, Moody had visions of Calvary before they could proclaim the power of God's redeeming love. They who have been with Christ on the mount are they who can cast out evil spirits at the foot of the mount.—N. Y. Observer.