Secrets Of Service

In the athletics of men it may be that one only receives the prize, but in the things of God it is possible for each to reach and receive the highest.

Possible? Yes, possible indeed; wondrous and inexplicable as it may seem, it is possible for the last to be first, the low to be high, and the seemingly less-honourable to receive more abundant honour. "He that is faithful in that which is least " - be the life never so short and the opportunities so few - " is faithful also in much" (Luke 16. 10. A.V.). Such is the word of Him who spake as never man spake, and is according to the piercing scrutiny of God the Omniscient One; the equity of whose judgement is beyond all challenge. At the Judgement Seat of Christ, when Christian life and service are brought up for review by the Lord the RIGHTEOUS JUDGE (2 Timothy 4. 8) each deed will receive its true and due recompense, "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55. 9).

The judgement of the Lord is not that of men-largely of outward appearance - " For the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart" (1 Samuel 16. 7).

Before works are Divinely rewarded the reins are tried and the heart is searched (see Psalm 7. 9; Revelation 2. 23). To men, an action may appear as pretty and as big as a large bubble, but the query is, Does it possess the specific gravity of gold? In the mathematics of God, the length of a life is found by measuring its depth. The hidden springs of all actions are X-rayed by God, and all deeds from their conception to their consummation are recorded in the annals on high, to receive judgement by reward or loss at the hand of Him unto whom is committed all judgement. Knowing this, what manner of persons ought we to be! How we view the acknowledged. hero with thrilled spirits and quickened pulse! How we long to go and do likewise, and our hearts yearn for the opportunity of doing the heroic-receiving the

acclamations accorded the doer of such deeds!

Heroism is a sadly misunderstood thing, for the deed alone does not make the hero. David was a hero in his quiet shepherd days long ere he met Goliath of Gath. The condition of heart produces the act; often the call comes suddenly, but the power to respond was generated in days that are past. The power is the result of the quiet growth of the inner life of the years that have been. The faithfulness in the much, is begotten in the faithfulness in the little. Through all life's quiet hours we are deciding-it may be unconsciously, how we shall behave in the supreme moments that shall arise. The hero's work was not concluded with the last public martyr, nor did heroes all die with the last embers of Smithfield fires. God has so ordained things that "the daily round, the common task," is schooling and training ground for such. Its essence is self-sacrifice, its dynamic is love to Another.

It is the same whether the deed is done in the twilight of common life or on the sunlit heights of conspicuity. Great deeds for God are done not so much by the hand as the heart. His "Well done" lies at the end of the plodding road of faithfulness rather than on the summits of isolated peaks of circumstances. We make the fatal mistake of counting actions, and ending there; but God checks all results by weighing them too. The sinner is sometimes told that if salvation depended on works, the longer life would have the advantage of the shorter one. If this be so, what shall be said of the saint's reward on the same grounds? For of this we feel assured that some of God's noble servants have been called home in comparatively early life.

The eye of God is both microscopic and telescopic ; historic and prophetic; retrospective and prospective; consequently He looks on lives of short duration and limited opportunities, with the piercing vision of omniscience; the oak of faithfulness is seen in the acorn of purpose-the deeds that would have been, in the years that might have been.

Yea, "All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do" (Hebrews 4. 13. A.V.). And so, in some cases-

Deeds of merit as men thought them,

He will tell us were but sin.

Little deeds men have forgotten,

He will tell us were for Him.

In the eyes of men there lay in Bethlehem's manger the son of Mary; in eyes Divinely anointed, the Son of God. Moreover, God sees the end from the beginning and reckons accordingly.

It is well to remember that what is conceived in the heart is given birth to in life; hence the wise word of Proverbs 4. 23, "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life" therefore, "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honourable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things" (Philippians 4. 8). THINK on these things, for as a man "thinketh in his heart, so is he (Proverbs 23. 7. A.V.). Remember the Divine standard of loveliness, commendableness, and so forth, and not the mere standard of men.

The man of God, like the queen bee feeds upon "royal jelly," which in his case is the Word of God. The man of Psalm 1. is the one who meditates in the law of the LORD day and night; and the same can be said of the man of 2 Timothy 2., prepared unto every good work.

Daniel refused to feed on the dainties that the world at its best provides, that he might not be defiled. The meat from the king's table might have been killed with the blood, which God had prohibited, or it might have been offered to idols which was equally prohibited (see Leviticus 17. 10-14; Exodus 34. 15; 1 Corinthians 10. 20). Daniel is one of the oakmonarchs of the forest of God. What a specimen to contemplate-grown from the acorn of purpose, for Scripture informs us that "Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself." Joseph also, in the fear of God refused to defile himself, guarding his heart and maintaining his integrity. Both Joseph and Daniel were honoured as Prime Ministers in the greatest Gentile nations of the world, of their times. The food that made Daniel so fair, and built up such an heroic frame for God, was food that was common to all- -that is food that was procurable even by the poorest. Into the hands of each child of God to-day has been given the food that has fed the mighty for God. Rightly to prize, and freely to partake of the Word of God is the thing needful for the child of God to-day. How rich in suggestion is Daniel's simple pulse and pure water! Look at them which way you will, Daniel's diet and Daniel's daring are interlocked-re-acting on each other, presenting to our view the obverse and reverse sides of the coin of his noble life.

Between the commencing purpose and the concluding power, you may place the pulse, the chosen food of his life. Faithful lives are to be preferred to easy lives! It is better to toil through stormy seas with the Lord in the boat than sail alone on placid sunny seas. Love is the dynamic of all true service and produces self denying devotion to Him who first loved us.

The more we realise the utter hideousness of sin, and God's hatred of it; and the more we appreciate the tremendous and unspeakable loveliness of His grace in providing salvation for such rebels as we were, the more shall we love Him and prove it by heart-beats of purpose, and the constant breathings of our lives. If we realize the much we have been forgiven, we shall love much. All faithful service must be intelligent service in the light of God's Word ; for the athlete is not crowned except he strive lawfully, and thus we are led to the Word of God to learn what is acceptable and well-pleasing. It is only those who, oft communing with God, drink deeply of His Word, can fully answer the call in the crises of service by the "it is written " of their lives.

Thus the love of Him who bought us with His blood constrains us to give up our lives for Him by laying them down in His service. If we would but take to heart the appeal of Romans 12. 1, what a power for God on earth the lives and testimony of saints would be! " I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God "-Can you count them? Can you weigh them? Would all the gold of all the world equal one of them, let alone the sum of them ? "I beseech you THEREFORE ... by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your

Reasonable service.

(The MS. of the foregoing article was found among the papers of Mr. A. Sproson, who is now with Christ.)

unknown | Jan 1933
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