By J.R. Miller
"Settle it in your heart that the sum of all business and blessedness, is to live to God." John Wesley
"The glory is not in the task--but in doing it for Him." Jean Ingelow
The object of our life determines its character. What we live for--tells what we are. If a man's aim is to get rich, if that is the ruling motive of his life--greed for gold is his absorbing passion. If a man lives to do good to his fellow men, if this is his single purpose, the desire will inspire all his thoughts and actions.
It is interesting to put ourselves to the test to discover just what the real purpose of our living is. When we know this we can tell where our life is tending, what it will be when it is finished, what impression we are making on the world, and what our living means to God.
That which distinguishes a Christian life from others--is that it is God's. We belong to God. To live to any other, therefore, is disloyalty and idolatry. Paul in one of his epistles, asserts this truth very strongly. He says, "None of us lives to himself, and none dies to himself. For whether we live--we live unto the Lord; or whether we die--we die unto the Lord; whether we liver therefore, or die--we are the Lord's."
All our relations are with the Lord. To him we owe our full obedience--we have no other master. It is his work we are doing, whether it be what we call secular work, or whether it be what we consider religious work. In all our acts, words, thoughts, feelings--we are living to the Lord--if we are living worthily. We may not be conscious of this relation--but whether we are or not, it is to the Lord that we are living. We may not think definitely of God every time we speak, every time we do anything--but if we are sincere our desire always is to please God, to honor him, to have his approval. It is to the Lord that we must answer in judgment. "We shall all stand before the judgment seat of God--each one of us shall give account of himself to God."
The truest life, is that which is lived most fully and unbrokenly unto God. Jenny Lind said, in accounting for the motive and spirit of her wonderful singing, "I sing to God." She meant that she looked into God's face, as it were, and consciously sang to him. She did not sing to the vast audience that hung on her words and was held spellbound by them. She was scarcely conscious of any face before her but God's. She thought of no listening ear but God's. We may not all be able to enter into such perfect relation with God as did this marvelous singer--but this is the only true ideal of all Christian life. We should do each piece of work for God. The business man should do all his business for God. The artist should paint his picture for God. The writer should write his book for God. The farmer should until his ground for God. This means that we are always engaged in the Father's business, and must do it all in a way that he will approve.
Jesus was a carpenter, for many years working at the carpenter's bench. We are sure that he did each piece of work for his Father's eye. He did it skillfully, conscientiously, beautifully. He did not skimp it, nor hurry through it, so as to get away from the shop earlier.
What a transformation it would make in all our work if we could say in truth, "I do it for God." Now this is not an impossible ideal for Christian life. It was this that Paul meant, in part, at least, when he said, "To me to live is Christ." He was living in Christ. He was living for Christ. His life was all Christ--Christ living in him. He had the same conception of Christian life when he wrote, "Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatever you do--do all to the glory of God." Even our eating and drinking are included in this high ideal. The sins of gluttony and intemperance in drinking are condemned. We must also eat healthfully: eat to live--and not live to eat. To do anything to the glory of God is to do it so that it will reflect the divine glory, and be for the divine honor. This is part of what Paul meant when he said, "We live unto the Lord."
It is possible to follow the guidance of conscience in all things, doing always what is right--and yet not live unto the Lord, not to have any consciousness of God, any sense of a personal God, any thought of God at all, in what we say or do. It is possible to accept the Christian moralities as our rule of life, following them even in the smallest things--yet not be living unto God, not even believing in God nor having any love for him. When the singer said, "I sing to God," she meant that she thought of God as she sang, and poured forth her song directly in praise and love to him. So we should seek to do all our work for God.
There cannot but be a wonderful inspiration in living in this way unto God, if we make it real. It is not always easy to work under those who are over us. Sometimes they are unjust, unfair in their treatment of us, unkind toward us, tyrannical in their exactions of service or in their manner of enforcing their commands. It is easy for us to fret and chafe when we have to endure severity or unkindness in the performance of our daily tasks. But it changes everything, if we are conscious of another Master, in back of the human master, and remember that he is the one for whom we really are working. He is never unfair or unjust, never severe or harsh. We can work joyfully with him and for him, unaffected by the hardness or the inhumanity of the human master who is immediately over us. We may bear the harshness, the injustice, the unkindness we have to endure, if it is our duty to stay in the place, seeing ever the eye of Christ, with its love and sympathy, looking upon us and enduring all the harshness for him.
Paul exhorts servants to be obedient to their masters--"as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart." "Whatever you do," he says, "work heartily, as unto the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that from the Lord you shall receive the recompense of the inheritance: you serve the Lord Christ." It makes the most trying service easy, when it is done in this way--but looking beyond the human master and seeing Christ as the real Master, for whom we are working. We are living unto him. We are serving him. From him we shall receive the reward for our faithfulness.
Paul speaks in this same connection of dying. It does not seem strange to hear him say, "Whether we live--we live unto the Lord." But when he goes on and says, "Whether we die--we die unto the Lord," the words strike us as unusual and startle us. Dying does not interrupt nor in any way interfere with our relations to Christ. It is just like any other passage in life. Dying is only a phase or experience of living. We are as really Christ's, when we die and after we die--as we are when we are living. The words are wonderfully illuminating; they throw a bright light on the mystery of dying. We are not separated from Christ in death; the bond between us and him is not broken. When we die we do not pass out of Christ's service; we only pass to another form of service. We have the impression that death cuts our life off, interrupts it, and makes an entire change in everything which concerns us. But the truth is, life goes on through death--and after death very much the same as it did before. There will be nothing greatly new in our experience, nothing strange or unusual, when we are dead. Life and death are all one--parts of the same continued existence. "Whether we live--we live unto the Lord; or whether we die--we die unto the Lord; whether we live therefore, or die--we are the Lord's."
There really is nothing to dread, therefore, in dying. The Old Testament Scriptures represent it as a walk through the valley, the valley of the shadow of death, accompanied by the Shepherd, whose presence allays all fear and gives peace. In the New Testament what we call dying is a departure from earth, in the companionship of Christ. There is a mystery in it because it is away from all that we know or understand and all that we can see--but there is nothing in it to be dreaded--for it does not separate from Christ for an instant--and it takes the person to Christ to be with him forever. We are to die unto the Lord, with no interruption to our attachment to him, and then continue, in the heavenly life, living unto the Lord. For life will go on with its blessed activities in heaven. Our work may differ in its character--but we shall ever be loving and serving Christ.
Thus our relation with Christ is for all time, through death, and through eternity. He does not become our Savior merely to deliver us in some emergency. Ofttimes this is all that we can do for a man who is in distress or need. We can relieve him for the time--but when the occasion is past he drops away from us, perhaps back into his old trouble, and our relation to him ceases. But when we accept Christ as our Savior it is forever. He takes us into his love and into his life. He establishes a relation with us that never shall be broken. He will never weary of us. We may sin against him--but he will not cast us off. We may be unfaithful to him and may wander far away--but when we repent and creep back to him, he will forgive us and receive us again to the place of love. The marriage covenant has a limitation, for it is "until death us do part." But there is no such limitation in the covenant made between Christ and us. Death will not part us from him. We belong to him in the heavenly life. We are to follow him in this world to the very last, and then forever in the world to come. We are to do the will of God on earth as it is done in heaven, and then continue to do his will when we reach heaven.
