The Vital Topic by G. B. Starr

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Apr 7, 1914

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 13.

The Vital Topic

By G. B. Starr

LET your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever. Heb. 13:5-8.

Some things we ought never to talk about. First, the subject we love most, and regard as most important,—ourselves. It is bad taste, ill-mannered, and unprofitable generally.

The Holy Spirit has set us a wonderful example on this point. "He shall not speak of Himself." His mission is to talk of Christ, to inspire conversation about Christ. John 16:13-15. After the mind has ranged the world of thought, from Babylon to Greece and from Greece to the farthest West, and found no rest, then when brought in touch with Jesus by the word and Spirit of God, it stands entranced, charmed, and satisfied. It seeks no further, but for more, "more about Jesus." To know more of Him is the one purpose of the mind and heart; and to that fixed purpose the heart and mind of the true Christian are firmly and steadily held even to advanced old age, and as long as life lasts it grows.

When, in our experience, we meet Jesus, the scales that have veiled all nature fall from our eyes—the scales that have given a wrong vision of every object about us and of ourselves, so that self is overestimated, and God and our fellows are underestimated, undervalued. Mountains that have appeared as mole-hills, and mole-hills that have appeared as mountains, are now seen in their proper proportions.

Meeting and knowing Jesus has changed all. How small our greatest heroes appear beside Him! How small self in its true proportion measures! The altogether lovely One is the only true standard by which to measure the altogether faulty ones.

"It is God's likeness, not our own, that is to be impressed on the heart." "Let Christ appear, and self be hid in Him."

"Habitually dwelling upon Christ, His exalted character, and the all-sufficient merits of His sacrifice, increases faith, sharpens the imaginative powers, strengthens the longing desire to be like Him, and creates holy earnestness in prayer that makes it efficacious." ("Gospel Workers," pages 264, 265.) Let us think and talk of Jesus.

G. B. STARR.