8. Christ In Our Every Days
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One of the later Old Testament prophets predicts a coming golden age when the bells of the horses shall be as sacred as the garments of the high priest, and the common cooking utensils in the people's homes as holy as the vessels of the temple. Paul teaches this lesson when he says, "Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." This covers all our acts and all our words. It applies to our Bible reading—but not less to our other reading. We must read our morning newspaper, our Tennyson, our school text books—in the name of the Lord, so as to honor him, and to get knowledge that will add to the beauty and the strength of our life. We are to pray in the name of the Lord Jesus—but we are also to go to our business in the same blessed name. We regard the Lord's house as holy, and say that we should do nothing in it but that which is reverent, which yields honor and praise to God. True; but the house we live in is sacred also, and nothing ever should take place in it which would not be fitting and proper to do in the presence of Christ himself.
We think of certain acts as worship, and as we enter upon them we hear a voice saying, "Take off your shoes from your feet, for the place whereon you stand is holy ground." But where is God not present? Where shall we go any common day that it is not holy ground? There may be no burning bush—but God is there as really as he was when Moses came suddenly upon the symbol of his presence in the desert. We believe that we are doing good work when we are teaching a Sunday school class; but are those doing God's work any less truly, who on weekdays teach classes of little children or young people in public or private schools? We consider it a most sacred duty to sit down at the Lord's Table, at the service of the Holy Communion; but have you ever thought that there is also a sacredness scarcely less holy—in sitting down together at our family meals? In the ideal religion, thebells on the horses' bridles are holy unto the Lord, as well as the high priest's garments; and the pots used in the people's houses are as sacred as the vessels used in the temple.
When we learn this lesson, Christian life will have its true meaning and glory for us. Nothing will then appear common-place. We never think of our occupation as lowly—for the lowliest work, if it is God's will for us for the hour, will be heavenly in its splendor, because it is what we are commanded by our Master to do. Our God is not only the God of the sanctuary and the solemn worship—he is just as much the God of the workshop, the factory, the sewing room, and the kitchen. We please him just as well when we live sweetly, and do our work faithfully in the lowly place, amid temptation, care, and weariness—as we do when we honor and worship him at the communion.
We think we are in this world to attend to a certain business, to perform certain professional duties, to look after certain household affairs—to be a carpenter, a stonemason, a painter, a teacher, a housekeeper—we call these our vocations. But as God thinks of us, we are in these occupations to grow into noble and worthy character. While we are making things—God is making men. With him a carpenter shop is not merely a place for making doors, sashes, and banisters, and to plane boards—it is a place to build character, to make men. A home is not merely a place for doing beautiful housekeeping—it is a place to develop fine womanhood.
Dr. R. F. Horton, of London, has suggested that the names of the days should be changed, since they are all called by ancient heathen names. He would have them renamed after great and good Christian men. It may not be possible to do anything of this kind—but it ought to be possible for every Christian to write the name of Christ at the head of every day. Some people seem to think that if they keep the Lord's Day holy in a fashion, they may stain Monday and the other weekdays with all manner of evil. But we are learning that Monday belongs to God, just as truly as Sunday. The ancient commandment reads, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." The new commandment, however, reads, "Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for God's glory!" 1 Corinthians 10:31
True Christian consecration, will make all business holy. It has been said that the application of the Ten Commandments to business and to politics, is only an gleaming dream, something entirely impossible. Nevertheless, there the commandments stand, given not for Sundays only—but for weekdays as well; not for the quiet life of the home alone—but just as truly for the marts of trade, for the mill, the factory, the shop, the business meeting. "Do not trouble yourself too much," said Michael Angelo to a young sculptor who was anxious about the light for the proper exhibition of his piece of statuary, "do not trouble yourself too much about the light on your statue; the light of the public square will test its value." It would be easy in the studio to pose the marble so as to bring out its fine qualities and conceal its faults; but the statue will have to be set up on the street by and by, and there no posing, no arrangement of light and shade, will hide its defects. It is not enough that in the church on Sunday, that men appear good, true, honest, and devout. Our Christian profession must stand the light of the street, of the public square. We must have our honesty tested in our business transactions, our truthfulness tried and proved in our common fellowship with men, our devoutness of manner subjected to the sneers and profanities of ungodly people.
Jesus himself gave as the rule of his life, "I always do those things which please my Father." Every friend of Christ, should be able to say the same things. All who bear Christ's name, should live so carefully in their business affairs, that no reproach ever shall come back to the name of the church from anything any of them may do during the week, in their common work. It never should be said of nay of them, "He is an enthusiastic Christian on Sunday—but on Monday he drives hard bargains, he takes advantage of others, he does not pay his debts, he is not honest, he oppressed the poor, he does not live a clean, pure life." Ruskin found on a church in Venice these words engraved, "Round this temple let the merchant's weights be true, his judgments just, his contracts honest." This is a good motto for all Christian men in their business affairs.
Even the play and the amusement of a Christian, are part of his Christian life. They must be as holy as his devotions. We need not wear long faces. Nor need we condemn pleasure. The Master did not. His first public act after his baptism and temptation, was to attend a wedding feast, and we know he cast no shadow over the gladness and festivity of that occasion. He smiled on the children's play—they never were afraid of him, nor did not run and hide when they saw him coming, as some children used to do when they saw the minister riding up to their house. He was not like the Pharisees who posed as saintly, and made their religion unbeautiful and unwinsome. He wants us to be happy, to have his joy fulfilled in us. But our pleasure, our amusement, must always be pure, holy, unselfish—as sacred as our worship.
Someone gives this singular definition: "Temperament—an excuse for character." A man is gloomy and pessimistic, and he blames it on his temperament—he was born that way. One person always finds faults and disagreeable things in people and in circumstances, and excuses himself for this unhappy characteristic on the ground of temperament. Another man has a fiery temper, which flares up at the slightest provocation. He received the Holy Communion on Sunday and then on Monday was seen in a terrible rage. "It is my temperament," he says, "I can't help it."
All of this is pure fiction! Temperament is no excuse for faulty character, for un-Christian disposition, or for ungoverned temper. Because we are Christ's, we must see that we never dishonor his name by such outbursts. He is always with us, and is grieved when we fail to keep our lives holy. What did you do yesterday, when you were out among people? How did you treat those with whom you work? What beauty of Christ did you show in your conduct, in your disposition, in your behavior? What patience did you exercise? What thoughtfulness did you manifest? What unkindness did you endure quietly? What rising anger did you restrain? Was your day full of words, acts, and dispositions which were as holy as a prayer?
One asks: "Do we want to know ourselves? Then let us ask everyday: 'How have I met the drudgery of my regular work? How have I treated those who work beside me or who have claims upon me? How have I kept my temper over little worries? How often have I looked to God and toward high ideals? What thoughts have been my companions?' Here are the real, accurate tests of character. They do not give us an easy time of it. But they are true. According as the answers to them are satisfactory or not, we are growing or weakening in character and becoming fit—or unfit—for the revealing crisis when it comes."
Home tests us. It ought not to be so—but perhaps no other place tests our Christian consecration more accurately, than our home. Its very sweetness seems to free us from the restraint we feel in the presence of strangers. Those who do not love us—would not endure the words and acts, which we sometimes compel our dearest relatives to bear from us. It is pitiful to think how often those who stand for Christ in his church, and who elsewhere witness a good confession for him—in their own homes seem to feel themselves absolved from all the courtesies and amenities of love, and even of good manners!
It ought not to be hard to love our own, and to show our love to them in all sweet and gentle ways. Surely we ought to love our own family best. Yet Christians, those bearing the name of Christ, have been known to go right from the Holy Communion to their own homes—and instantly to break out in bitter words, in carping and criticism, in blame and fault finding, in ill temper, and disgraceful accusations. If there is any place in this world which should be sacred to us, which should be like the very house of God to us, as sacred as the Lord's Supper, and which should call out our deepest reverence, our warmest love—it is our own home. If we are Christians anywhere in this world—let it be in our own home, where we are so loved and trusted. If we must be sullen, bitter, gloomy, selfish, and sour, somewhere—let it not be where our loved ones wait for us, and where their hearts cry out for tenderness!
On of the most pathetic sentences George Eliot ever wrote is this: "Oh, the anguish of the thought that we can never atone to our dead, for the stinted affection we gave them, for the little reverence we showed to that sacred human soul that lived so close to us, and was the divinest thing God had given us to know." Let us not fail to make our home life sacred and holy. If even on the bells of the horses we write, "Holy unto the Lord," let us not neglect to make the home in which we dwell, pray, live, and love—a fit place for Christ to tarry in, a sweet and gentle place for our dear ones to grow up in.
Chapter 9. Doing Impossible Things
We too easily set limits to our own ability. We do not know our own potential. We face a difficulty and think we cannot master it—so do not try. Any of us might accomplish a great deal more than we do. Jesus said, "All things are possible with God." The preposition "with" is the key to the meaning of this saying. Many people take the words to mean only that God can do everything, that nothing is impossible to him. But what Jesus says is that a man with God can do impossible things. We know that God is omnipotent. Job said, "I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be restrained." It gives us confidence, in the midst of dangers, in the face of enemies, or when troubles are about us—to know that God is stronger than the strongest. "If God is for us—who can be against us?" When we have some duty to do which is too hard for us with our little power, it gives us immeasurable comfort to know that God can do it. Yet God des not do our duty for us.
But we are co-workers with God. We cannot do our hard tasks ourselves, neither will God do them for us—God and we must do them. Nothing is impossible to one who works with God. So we may not indolently roll the responsibility of hard tasks and duties off our shoulders, even upon God. Whatever is given to us to do, we must accept and must accomplish. We have nothing to do, however, with the question of ability. Back of us—is all the strength of the Mighty God; and with this we can do the impossible—if it is God's will for us.
Many of the miracles of Christ are illustrations of this truth. He did not do for anyone by divine power, what the person could do with his own strength. He did not himself, by an act of his own, change the young ruler's heart; he bade him voluntarily to give up his money, which he loved, and follow him. If he had done this Christ would have entered his heart and changed it. When Jesus healed the man with a withered arm, he did not put life into the arm as it hung helpless by the man's side. He bade him stretch it forth, requiring him to use his own power of will. When he did this, the arm became strong. To the man himself the restoring of the arm was impossible; but to the man with God, it became easily possible.
It was impossible for the disciples to feed the hungry multitude on the hillside. Yet Jesus said, "Give them something to eat." It was an impossible duty, therefore, to which he set them. Yet they set about to obey his commandment, as if it had been some easiest thing to do. They did not say, "Master, we cannot do it." The simply began to do what he told them to do. Then, as they began to carry the bread to the people, it increased and continued to increase, until all the five thousand were satisfied.
Thus are we co-workers with God in all our life—in all our duties, in all our struggles. We cannot do these things by ourselves. "With men it is impossible." But, on the other hand, God does not do the things for us. "All things are possible with God." That is, all things are possible for us, with God. This is a most practical teaching. To each of us, the Master gives a work which is altogether our own. No one can evade his own personal responsibility. Neither can anyone say, "I cannot do anything." You cannot alone—but with God, which is working with God—there is nothing that is impossible to you. This is not your work, it is not God's—it is yours and God's.
It is by faith that we thus become co-workers with God. While Jesus and three of his disciples were on the Transfiguration Mount, a story of pitiful failure was being enacted at the foot of the mountain. A father had brought his epileptic son to the disciples during the night, asking them to cure him. The disciples tried—but could not do it. When Jesus came down in the morning, the father brought the son to him. "If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us," cried the father, in his distress. The "if" revealed the weakness of the man's faith. Nothing could be done for the boy while this "if" remained in the father's heart. Even Jesus, with his divine power, was balked in healing, by the "if." "If you can!" Jesus replied. "All things are possible to him who believes." Jesus could not do anything for the boy, but through the father, and before the father could do anything the doubt must be taken out of his heart.
This incident has serious teaching for parents. Something is wrong with your child. It may be sickness, or it may be evil in some form. You bring the child to Christ, while your faith is small. You tell him your heart's burden of distress or anxiety, and then you say, "O Master, if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us." But your "if" tells of faltering faith. The blessing is within your reach—but it cannot yet come to our child because of your lack of faith. "If you can believe!" the Master answers in yearning love. "All things are possible to him who believes." The healing, the helping, waits for your faith.
There is more of this story. Jesus healed the boy. Then when the disciples were alone with him, they asked him, "How is it that we could not cast it out?" Jesus answered, "Because of your little faith." Think of the impotence of these nine men! They tried to cast out the demon—but it defied them. Yet they need not have failed. They ought to have been able to cast it out. They had received Jesus as the Messiah. They loved him, they believed on him. But their faith was weak. Look at the case. Nine friends of Christ, disciples, too, ordained to do great things, baffled now, balked, failing to do a work of mercy—because their faith was too little! Blessing, healing, kept from a poor distressed boy—because a company of Christ's friends had not enough faith!
There is something startling in this, when we begin to apply it to ourselves. We are Christ's, we love Christ, we follow him, and we profess to believe on him, we are banded together for his service. About us are many who do not know their Lord, who has had no experience of his goodness. If these are to receive the blessing of Christ's love and grace, it must bethrough us. Do we ever stand in the presence of great human needs, as the disciples did that night at the foot of the mountain? Do we ever fail to give help, to cure, to restore, to comfort—because of our little faith? Is there danger that Christ himself shall not be able to do mighty works of blessing in our community, because of our unbelief? He will not do the mighty works, the gracious works, without us.
We need not go to him in prayer when we come upon some great need—a man in the grip of temptation, a woman in deep sorrow, a child in distress, a soul unsaved—and ask himto do the work of love and grace. He says at once to us, "Go and do it—and I will work with you." We must do the work—he will not do it without us, and if we do not do it, Christ's work in that case will fail, and the responsibility will be ours. At Nazareth it was said—that Jesus could not do many mighty works because of the unbelief of the people. The suffering in the town went uncomforted and unrelieved, because of the unbelief of the rulers. Is anybody going unhelped, uncomforted, unsaved about you, because your faith is so small, because there is no hand the Master can use?
What is the faith that has such power? It is the faith that so enters into Christ—that it takes up into itself all the life of Christ, all that he is. It makes us one with him, so that where we are he is, his Spirit flowing through us. "Because I live, you shall live also," said the Master. Paul puts it in a wonderfully vivid way when he says, "It is not I who live—but Christ living in me." This faith makes Christ and his friend not two—but one. It is this which enables him who believes to do impossible things. Paul says, "I can do all things—in him who strengthens me."
The standard of character which our Master sets for his followers, is full of impossibilities. Did you ever seriously try to live the Sermon on the Mount for a week, or even for a day? Did you ever try to live the Beatitudes? If you did, you know how impossible these holy standards reach. But when Christ enters into us and begins to live in us—we find that it is possible to begin to live out these impossible things.
Impossible things are expected of a Christian, just because he is a Christian. Anybody can do possible things. Possible things are the things of the ordinary natural life. It requires no heavenly grace, no divine strength, and no superhuman skill—to do possible things. But the Christian should do impossible things, should live a life of truth, purity, and holiness, as far above the world's standard and reach—as the sky is above the mountains. He should live a life of love, so patient, so thoughtful, so self denying, that it shall prove in the eyes of all who see it immeasurably above this world's ideals of life. But we are satisfied with too low standards of Christian life. We are not as holy as we ought to be. We are not as holy as we might be. We are not doing the impossible things, which our Master expects of us.
Sometimes we read of heroisms wrought on mission fields. The careers of many missionaries are sublime in their faith, in their devotion, in their courage, in their readiness to lay down their lives for Christ. Our hearts are thrilled when we read the story of these faithful witnesses. They do impossible things, such things as none but Christians can do, because Christ is in them. He said, "Go, make disciples of all nations, and lo, I am with you."
When Raphael was asked the secret of his marvelous work, he imagined, "I feel the spirit of my mother bending over me when I paint." In reality, when we ask why a Christian can do impossible things, it is because the Spirit of Christ is bending over him. A Christian in himself is only a man of common mold. He has no more wisdom, strength, or goodness than any other man. He has all the frailties, the infirmities, the imperfections, and faults of other men. But a Christian is a common man—plus Jesus Christ. Christ has added himself to him—his strength, his goodness, his love, his divine life. A Christian is a man with God.
In the later days of Grecian art, a prize was offered for the best statue of one of the goddesses. A youth in the country who loved this goddess set to work to compete for the prize. But he lacked the artist's gift and experience, and his statue was crude and clumsy, far from beautiful. It seemed to have no chance at all for winning the prize. But the goddess, so the heathen legend runs, knowing of the sincere devotion of this youth to her and his love for her, when the time came for the display of the statues in the competition, entered herself into the crude stone, and at once it glowed with divine beauty, by far the most beautiful of all the statues, winning the prize.
In similar manner, we are called to show the world the beauty of Christ, to reproduce the glory of his life, not in cold marble—but in Christian character, in Christian spirit, in Christian service. In our weakness and faultiness, it may seem to us that we cannot do anything, that our life and work are unworthy of the holy name which we bear. Our best seems most unlovely, crude, faulty, and imperfect; but if we truly love Christ, if we truly believe on him, and if at his command we strive to do that which seems impossible, Christ himself, knowing our love, and seeing our striving—will enter into our life and fill it with himself. Then our poor efforts will become radiant and divine in their beauty. Able to do nothing worthy in ourselves, when Christ adds his own blessed life to ours—we shall have power to do the things that are impossible.
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