By J.R. Miller
Before we can do people good, we must love them. There is no other secret of real helpfulness. The weakness of many schemes for the relief of distress and the amelioration of misery, is that they are only systems, working in mechanical lines--but without a heart of love to inspire them. A paid agent may dispense charity very justly and generously, and what he gives may serve its purpose well enough--fuel for the fire in winter, bread for hunger, and clothes to cover the shivering poor. But how much would be added to the value of these gifts--if love dispensed them, if a real heartbeat of human sympathy throbbed and thrilled in each bit of helpfulness. There are deeper needs than those of the body. There is a higher help than that which satisfies only physical needs. When with the gift of bread, love comes to the door, when it is a brother's hand that brings the welcome loaf, two hungers are fed, the hunger of the body and the hunger of the heart.
But not in charity only, is it the element of love which imparts the best blessing, multiplying many times the value of the material gifts disbursed. In all lines of life, it is love which is the true secret of power. We know the difference in the serving which is merely professional, however skillful it may be, and the serving which love inspires. It is interesting to remember that the one question which the Master asked His disciple, whom He was about to restore to his lost place as an apostle, was, "Do you love Me?" Not until Peter had answered this question affirmatively, could the care of souls be put into his hands. The essential qualification, therefore, for being a pastor, a teacher, or a spiritual helper of other lives--is love.
It is, first of all, love for Christ. One who does not love Him more than all other things, and all other beings, is not truly His disciple, and certainly is not fitted for shepherd work among Christ's sheep and lambs. But if there is true love for Christ--there will also be love for our brothers. No one is fit to do Christ's work for men, who does not love men.
Love is the essential thing in preparing one for being a helper of others. It is not enough for the preacher to declare to all men that God loves them--the preacher must love them too--if he would make them believe in the divine love for them. The true evangel is the love of God interpreted in a human life. No other will win men's confidence and faith. We must show the tenderness of God--in our tenderness. We must reveal the compassion of God--in our compassion. God so love that He gave--we must so love as to give.
The only efficient preaching of the cross--is when the cross is in the preacher's life. The man must love men, and must love them enough to give himself for them; otherwise his preaching will have but little power. It was this which gave Jesus Christ such influence over men and drew the people to Him in such throngs. He told them of the love of God--but they also saw that love and realized its compassion in His own life. He loved, too. He wrought miracles and did many gracious things; but that which made all His ministry so welcome and so full of helpfulness, was that He loved the people He helped or comforted.
That is the meaning of the Incarnation--it was God interpreted in a human life, and since God is love, it was love which was thus revealed and interpreted. Just in the measure, therefore, that we love others, are we ready to help them in any true way. Nothing but love will do men good. Power has its ways of helping. Law may protect. Money will buy bread and build homes. But for the helpfulness which means the most in human lives, nothing but love prepares us. Even the most lavish and the most opportune gifts, if love is not in them, lack that which chiefly gives them their value. It is not the man whose service of others costs the most in money value, who is the greatest benefactor--but the man who gives the most of human compassion, the most of himself, with his gifts. He who puts his heart, his life, into his service, has given that which will multiply his gifts a thousand times.
It is worth our while to think of love's true attitude to others. The spirit of serving is different altogether from the spirit in which men usually think of others. The world's attitude is that of self interest. Men want to be served, not to serve. They look at other men, not with the desire to be helpful to them, to do them good, to give them pleasure--but rather with the wish to be served in some way by them, to have their own personal interests advanced through their association with them. Even friendship too often has this selfish basis--the gain there will be in it. But the love which Christ came to teach us, looks at others in an altogether different way. Instead of asking how they can be made profitable to us, it teaches us to ask in what way we may be helpful to them.
Jesus put it in a sentence when He said of Himself, "The Son of man came not to be ministered unto--but to minister." A study of His life in this regard, will make His meaning plain. He never demanded attention. Conscious of His divine glory, He never exacted reverence. He used all His authority and power, not to humble men beneath Him, nor to compel them to help Him--but in serving them and doing them good. The picture of Jesus with the basin and the towel is one of the truest representations of His whole life. He lived to serve.
On one occasion Jesus taught His disciples the lesson with special clearness, setting in contrast the world's way and His own: Jesus called them together and said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." Mark 10:42-45. Thus He taught that the noblest, the divinest, life is that which seeks to serve. He is greatest, who ministers.
This does not mean that the servant in a house is greater than his master or his work more pleasing to God--the master may serve more truly than the servant. It is not by the position--but by the spirit, that the rank is determined. The law of love requires us to look upon everyone with a desire for his good and with a readiness to give him help, to do him service. As Paul puts it, we are debtors to every man, owing to each a debt of love and service. If this mind which was in Christ Jesus is in us, it will inspire in our heart, kindly thought of everyone. We will think not so much of having friends--as of being a friend, of receiving, as of giving, of being helped, as of helping.
We should not press our service officiously on anyone--this is an error always to be avoided. We will not over help--nothing could be more unwise or unkind. Nor will this spirit make us fawning or patronizing in our relations to others. On the other hand, nothing is manlier than the love which our Lord enjoined upon His followers, as the very badge of discipleship, and whose portrait Paul painted so inimitably.
It is when we have this spirit of service, that we are prepared to be truly helpful to others. Then we will look upon everyone we meet as our brother. Even the most debased will appear to us as still having in him possibilities of something noble and beautiful.
In both low and high, there is need always for love's serving. We are debtors to everyone--to every man we owe love's debt; and if we are truly following our Master--we must love all, and be ready ever to serve all in love's best way.
An interesting story is told of a good woman who opened a home for children for whom no one seemed to care. Among those received into her home was a boy of three years whose condition was pitiable indeed. His skin was blotched, and his disposition was fretful and unhappy. Try as she would, the woman could not love him. Something in him repelled her. She was outwardly kind to him--but it was always an effort to show him any tenderness.
One day she sat on the veranda of her house with this boy on her knee. She dropped asleep and dreamed that she saw herself in the child's place, the Master bending over her. She heard Him say, "If I can bear with you, who are so full of fault and sin, can you not, for My sake--love this poor child, who is suffering, not for his own sin--but through the sin of his parents?"
The woman awoke with a sudden startle, and looked into the face of the boy. Penitent because of her past unkind feeling, and with a new compassion for him in her heart, she bent down and kissed him as tenderly as ever she had kissed babe of her own. The boy gave her a smile so sweet that she had never seen one like it before. From that moment a change came over him. The new affection in the woman's heart transformed his peevish, fretful disposition into gentleness. She loved him now, and her serving was glad hearted and Christlike, no more perfunctory.
There is no other secret of the best and truest serving. We must love those we would help. Service without love counts for nothing. We can love even the unloveliest, when we learn to see in them possibilities of divine beauty. But only the love of Christ in us will prepare us for such serving.
