MUST by A. W. Roffe

Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Jun 27, 1900

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

MUST.

By A. W. Roffe

DOING right because you feel that you must is like having to make bricks without straw. If you are going through on the must line, you are still a stranger to the “run and not grow weary,” the “walk and not faint” experience. The joy of mounting up with wings as eagles is unknown.

There is too much service self-caused. “I have no particular desire to go to the house of God, but I suppose I must.” So soliloquize a great many. The reason they don’t like to go is because they don’t get blessed, and the reason they don’t derive spiritual benefit is because they go thinking they must go, and not because they enjoy going. There is too much “I” connected with what is said and done. “I am expected to. It will be thought strange if I don’t. The fact is, I must.” This is one way of rendering service, but it is not the best way, nor is it His way. “And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes.” Not self-caused, but Spirit-caused. Not I must, but I delight to do Thy will, O God.

—A. W. Roffe, editor Christian Worker, Toronto.