Your ShelfYour Projects

Untitled article

8%

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 14, 1865

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 25, No. 15.

Read the full edition

Sabbath Meditations. No. 8.

By Joseph Clarke

"I DELIGHT to do thy will, O my God." Ps. xl, 8.
What people love, that they strive to obtain. It is hard work, all hard, up-hill work, to do what we dislike to do, and he who for fear of penalties or in hope of rewards, tries to serve God, is always taking up crosses, always doing something disagreeable to himself, in order to please a being whom he supposes to be God.
Without love to God, he renders an unwilling, cold, calculating, service to God, very much such a service as some men render to their employers, all for the pay, careless of the interests and feelings of their masters.
With such men the day is too long, and the meals too far apart, and the work is too hard, the master is unreasonable; and nothing is so agreeable to them, as the pay and the pay-day.
The Christian loves God and his service, loves his law and his testimony, loves the character of God, and loves all his attributes. He loves the people of God. He loves the work assigned him, whether he, like Daniel, is prime minister to the Emperor, or whether he delve with John the writer of the Revelation, in the mines of Patmos; he does all for love.
Love makes labor light. As the mother with lightsome heart toils night and day for the comfort and credit of her family, as the faithful father patiently labors at the most fatiguiug avocations, for the support of his household, comforting his soul daily with the sweet prattle of the little ones, each of whom is a little light to him in the dark recesses of life, as the dutiful son braves the dangers of the stormy ocean, that he may minister to the wants of his widowed mother, and her little fatherless children; as all these work for love, as these all work cheerfully and perseveringly for the love they cherish toward their kindred, dearer to them than life, so the Christian works for love.
He first admires, then loves, virtue and holiness, for their own sake; and finding in God the origin and source of all good, the embodiment of all that is virtuous and holy, and finding that the truth and testimony of God is rejected by the world at large, finding the people of God outlawed in the past, and only tolerated at the present time, he would at first glow with indignation at the ingratitude and disloyalty of the creatures whom God has made in his own image.
But heavenly wisdom changes his mind, and his indignation becomes pity; and, like his Master, the good Shepherd, he goes forth to seek the lost; and all for love.
His besetments are overcome by love; for cherishing this sacred love, he soars above the carnality and grossness of his sinful nature, and thus living in the love of God, he has little taste for worldly pleasures.
He does not abate in the ardor of his love, but dailyadds fuel to this sacred fire, by the constant practices of the Christian virtues. He delights in the society of saints here, and in prayer and meditation, and in reading God's word he often gets a taste of heavenly joys.
Love to God prompts, and spurs him to action. Thus love sustains him on the wing, amid storm and tempest. It is a love which many waters cannot quench nor floods drown.
JOSEPH CLARKE.