THE GREAT MOTIVE | AdventAI

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 26, 1860

THE GREAT MOTIVE.

“I was once travelling on a western railroad,” said a young man in our prayer meeting, “and I happened to be seated beside a gentleman with whom I fell into conversation on general matters, and I soon found that there was a strong tie between us. I learned that he was a missionary in one of the interior countries, and we began to converse on the interests of religion. We spoke of plans and motives; and in reply to a remark he made, I said that if I knew my own heart, I was trying to live with a single motive—to glorify God. ‘My young friend,’ said the good man, ‘I have been trying for forty years to satisfy myself of the same thing, but I am not yet so clear on that point.’ It was a lesson,” continued the young man, “that I shall never forget. It led me to look more closely to my own heart, to scan my real motives, to look at my daily life and conversation; and I found that after all it was not so easy a thing as I imagined to live with a single purpose of holiness and consecration to God.”

The reply of the old soldier was a wise one.—He had run the race for forty years, as an earnest servant of Christ. He had been through the varied experience, and had seen the lights and shadows of the Christian warfare. He had learned the power of the world over the heart. He had borne the struggle with the natural affections and desires, and had learned the depth of the declaration, that “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.” He could well remind his young companion of these things by a simple declaration of his anxiety to be assured that his own motives were pure, and that he was, indeed, living to glorify God.

But the answer of the young man was as noble as it was Christian. Though he may have been more or less mistaken in regard to the entireness of his purpose, and though in the ardor of youth, some worldly purpose may have alloyed his desire to live for the honor of God, yet the answer was a good one. It showed that his affections were directed to the highest end. Young men are too unfrequent, who make this their foundation-motive, and who are willing to let it be known among strangers. The homes and dreams of the world crowd too closely upon their places; and schemes of fame, ambition and wealth, are too apt to bind them to a conformity with the world. May the experience of that young man prove that he is living for the glory of God.

The incident suggests to us the importance of a thorough self-examination on the part of every Christian in order that he may know to what purpose he is living. The surface work of the Christian is not enough. The external profession, the church membership, the attendance on public service, are not the sum total of a Christian life. The vine derives its luxuriance and its fruit from the supplies that nourish it inwardly. The sun may shine upon it outwardly, and the rain and the dew may fall upon it, but it draws its life-blood and its vigor by the circulation of the sap and the moisture absorbed by the roots and distributed by its channels and fibres to every branch, every leaf and every cluster. So must the Christian become fruitful by the inner life and spiritual growth which will enable him to become a fruitful limb, and to bring forth a hundred fold to the honor of God.

We often repeat to ourselves the words of the hymn:

“''Tis a point I long to know— Oft it causes anxious thought— Do I love the Lord or no? Am I his, or am I not?”

If we love him we will keep his commandments. If we keep his commandments, we shall glorify him. If we glorify him, he will also, in his own time, glorify us in his heavenly kingdom.

All the motives and purposes of time sink into nothingness compared with this. Happy is that man who can, through the grace of God given to him, feel assured that he is thus consecrated to his service and his praise. He has already begun his companionship with the angels, and has realized that the “path of the just shineth more and more to the perfect day.”—Christian Intelligencer.