*Gems from a Discourse Preached at South Lancaster,
Massachusetts, January 8, 1916*
By IRWIN H. EVANS
It is a wonderful thing to be really in love with a being we have not seen. The secret of true service to God lies in being in love with Him; for service that is not born of love is but the stern performance of duty, and is hard work. A person who truly loves God will strive to serve Him. Apply the rule to your own life. If ever there was a time when you really loved some one, you did not dislike to serve that person. You regretted your inability to do more, no matter what the effort or the self-denial involved. If you did not love that person, the task would be difficult, and you could do it only from the sense of duty.
In spite of suffering, there is joy in the service, for there is love in the heart toward the afflicted one. As truly as a person loves, so truly he cannot help serving.
THE SECRET OF SERVICE
There is not a husband on earth, who truly loves his wife, who feels that he is doing as much for her as he would like to do. So in the service of God. The secret of all acceptable service to Him has its root in love,— a love that consumes self, and impels one to spend and be spent in His service. Then, whatever He requires is not regarded simply as a duty to be performed. It is a joy, a privilege. If this love is burning in our hearts, we will not have to whip ourselves up to service. What we need more than anything else is to come into that relationship, for only thus can we succeed in His service.
THE PERSONIFICATION OF LOVE
I once knew a man who had a child that had been afflicted with meningitis in infancy. I had never seen the child, though I had known the father, who is a successful business man, many years. He took me home to dinner one day; and when I saw the child, I was shocked and horrified. His face was distorted, and he could not speak a word — could not even lift his little finger. He was entirely helpless.
I said to the mother, out of sympathy, “How long has the child been in this condition?”
She replied, “Ever since he was two years old — thirteen years.”
I asked, “Is this little one fifteen years old?”
She did not seem to be looking at her painting at all, but only at the great master painting. That is just what God wants us to do — keep looking at Christ, the Pattern.
“Yes,” she answered, “and he has never been able to speak a word since he was two.”
I suggested, “This must have been a great burden and trial to you all these years.”
The tears sprang to her eyes, and she put her arms around the child, and said: “No, Brother Evans, this child has never been a burden to me. The only regret I have is that I have not had the strength to do more for him.”
That is love; and there are many in this world who have had joy in suffering and in spending their time and strength for some loved one,— a child, a sister, a father or mother.
Just as surely as that passion is burning in the life, just so surely will sin be unable to dominate in the life. The love of Christ will take out of the soul every evil passion of the heart, — impatience, envy, malice, hatred. All these carnal things will die under the flame of love for Jesus Christ. Really, if we have that love burning in the soul to the extent that we think of Him first, last, and all the time, we cannot help serving Him. A man in that condition would go right just as easily as he went wrong before, when he loved himself and the things of the world.
THE SECRET OF PEACE
If God asks for our money, our children, or ourselves, we should be willing to give Him all He requires. Why? — Because we love Him so much that we want Him to have everything we possess. I think that Paul meant something like this when he said, in the twelfth chapter of Hebrews, “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith”— not looking at each other or our brethren.274When we look at men, we will make mistakes; and we cannot have a great passion of love for Christ in our hearts when we are all the time looking at men. But we are to look to Jesus as our pattern. Then, when we see a man going astray, it will not affect us, except to cause us to desire to save him. We should be just as firmly grounded in our determination to love and serve the Lord when every man of the world goes wrong, because we do not get our religion from men. We get it from God.
In passing through a great trial, in a matter that I could not control, but had done everything I could to prevent, I found that every time I got the picture of Christ before me — and not only Him, but His precious promises — the turmoil would die out, and I would have peace in my heart. There is no other way than just to take Christ, and let Him be the chiefest of all our desires. If we do this, we will surely have peace in our hearts, and will grow like Him.
TRANSFORMED BY A RESISTLESS POWER
“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” 2 Cor. 3: 18. We are changed into the same image from glory to glory. How? — By beholding. We say we want to be like Christ; but how can we be like Him when we think only of fallible mortals, and when we give our supreme thought and anxieties to the things of this world? We can, however, be changed from glory to glory if only Christ is before us.
Changed — how? — By a power that is perhaps imperceptible, but still is mighty — a power that nothing can resist. It will subdue the passions of any heart. It will take sin out of any life. There is a transformation that is silent but continual, and that works and works and works, transforming and changing, until, by and by, the image of Christ is reflected.
Nor is there any other way by which we can attain Christian perfection except by looking at Christ. He is the Way, and there is no other. Yet the weakest cannot fail if only we will look at Christ, believing that His righteousness answers for our sins, believing His life to be a substitute for our life, and believing that God imparts His righteousness to us by faith, all the time looking to Christ, that we may be changed and transformed into His image.
KEEP THE EYE ON THE PATTERN
In an art gallery once, I became much interested in the work of a young woman who was copying a painting by one of the masters. The copy was practically completed, and I remember that I thought it was better than the original, or at least equal to it. But as I watched, I saw the artist sitting there with everything ready to paint, but all the time looking at the original.
Moment after moment she sat gazing at the picture. I would wander about a little, and come back, and she would be gazing at the picture still — not at her picture. She did not seem to be looking at her painting at all, but only at the great master painting. Then I saw her work at her paints to get the colors just right. Then she would make a tiny stroke upon the canvas and again would look at the original picture. I wondered at her looking all the time at the original, and not at her own picture; and I thought, That is just what God wants us to do — keep looking at Christ, the Pattern.
I noticed other artists there, who were making great strokes at first, and not paying much attention to the painting; but when it came to the final strokes, they looked carefully at the original. Hours at a time would pass that they did not put a stroke of paint on canvas, but they continued to look at the original. That is what God wants us to do. He wants us to look to Christ continually. When we get to thinking about Him in this way, in communion and prayer, Christ will come so near that we shall feel that He is indeed a present help, near at hand and not afar off, and we can talk to Him, and hear His voice in our hearts.
CHAINING THE MIND DOWN
I once asked a woman who was leading a very consecrated life, “How is it that you have developed such faith?” She said: “I just try all the time to keep Christ before me. I talk with Him as I go about my work, and we hold sweet converse together.” That is what God wants. That is the Christian life. Here we are, surrounded by heavenly intelligences. The Holy Spirit is here. The secret of the Christian life is, to learn to have sweet communion with God, and to have the mind stayed upon Him.
You will say: “But my mind is like a windmill. It beats back and forth, never at rest, and I know not how to control it.” You must chain the mind down. We must learn to control the mind, and stay it on sacred and holy things, instead of letting it get away to worldly, fleshly, and selfish things all the time. Surely we can do this by God's grace. When we give ourselves to Him without reserve, Christ Jesus will become to us the chiefest among ten thousand, the One altogether lovely.
We need this spiritual converse, this uplifting, divine touch, in order that we can keep our minds upon spiritual things, and keep them there more than one or two minutes without letting them drift off across the world. A person is in an awful state when he cannot hold his mind on the word of God while reading it. We must get over these habits, and get our minds fixed on Christ, till He is everything to us, and love Him so ardently that we shall have joy and gladness in the thought that He will some day make us like Himself.
PURIFIED BY AFFLICTION
We want to become like Jesus; and we can become like Him, can be changed into His image, from glory to glory. Christ can become a great, supreme passion with us; and it will not matter whether the world goes right or wrong, or what men may do or may not do. We will be students of Jesus Christ, molded and fashioned into His similitude, and we will long to be more and more like Him. There will be no room in our hearts for self-pity, or envy, or selfish desires.
Sometimes He will mold and fashion us by trials, sometimes by allowing afflictions to come into the life. No one need think that because he is trying to be like Jesus, he will be taken out of this world of suffering and sorrow. These things we shall have to the end. But they will only be allowed in your experience and mine to the extent that they make us more like Christ.
Just as soon as God sees that the trial has worked the desired effect on the life, He will lift it. Therefore we may, even in manifold temptations, “greatly rejoice,” knowing that the trial of our faith, “being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: whom having not seen, ye love.”
