: Christian Devotedness by Groves Anthony Norris - Christian life; Stewardship Christian

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ns in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God the Father", from His own redeemed, yea, the ransomed of the Lord, not the extorted, but voluntary homage from those hearts which would crown Him Lord of all. And certainly, any farther statement would be superfluous, if we were called upon to sit in judgment on the meaning of writers, whose opinions laid us under no practical obligation, or whose sentiments were in unison with our whole nature. Here however, the case is widely different; we have an old nature for this earth, as well as a new nature for heaven; and therefore, things require to be stated as fully as may be, that Satan may be stopped at every turn by "it is written". To admit an opinion--is to admit a truth; and to admit a truth--is to admit the obligation to act upon it, against our earthly constitution. And as the admission and reception of the particular truth now under consideration, strikes at the very root of many of nature's most fondly cherished feelings, and of many apparently so amiable, that we scarcely allow ourselves to doubt that they are of God; it may be necessary to enlarge still more upon the subject, and show that the reception of this truth prepared the way for the success of the Apostles, by leaving them free to follow Him who had called them to be soldiers, and that it will, by the grace of God,--promised to us as well as to them;--accomplish as great things in our days as it did in theirs, springing, as it did, and ever will, from this one source, Christ in us the hope of Glory, dwelling in us richly in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; yea: in those cases where the world think we fail, as well as those in which we seem to succeed: for if Christ and the spirit of His Kingdom be manifested, we are a sweet savour of Christ unto God, whether they receive our testimony or reject it; yea, though we preach as Noah did, an hundred and twenty years, and no man regard us.

"Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature" ,--was the parting command of our Blessed Saviour; and it was on the literal reception of this command that the momentous alternative hung of our knowledge, or ignorance of the only Name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved; for "how shall they hear without a preacher, and how shall they preach except they be sent?", still is the order of God's government. Had there been the same doubt of the meaning and obligation of this precept in the infancy of Christianity, which these last ages have exhibited, it would scarcely have extended its influence beyond the confines of Judea. But, thanks be to God, the first Christians felt the gospel, committed to their trust, to be "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth"; and they felt it to be the mind of Him who had loved them with an everlasting love, and given Himself for them, that this great act of surpassing love should be published to every creature, for His own glory, and for salvation to the ends of the earth; and therefore they counted all things but loss, that they might fulfil His will, and advance His Kingdom. Why has this spirit for so many centuries been slumbering? Because men have been seeking, every one his own things, and not the things of Christ. Let any one ask his own heart, as in the presence of God, in which state he should feel most disposed to embrace the command, "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature"--whether, when he is labouring for, and enjoying the comforts and conveniences of life, and providing against the future possible wants of himself and his family; or when, like the Apostles and first Christians, he has laid aside every earthly encumbrance, and waits ready to go or to stay, as the Spirit of God may appoint. To the enquiry--"Who will go for us?"--can there be a doubt whose heart would be most ready to reply "Here am I, send me"? . The one, having the eye single, since to glorify his Lord is the only object of his life, will be ready to answer--"Here am I "; while those who are surrounded by the cares and comforts of this world, have so many earthly claims and relations to adjust, that the general result will be that of standing still, and the enquiry,--"Who will go for us? "--will sound unwelcome to the ear, will chill, not animate, the noblest sympathies of the heart, and set the seal of silence on the lips. It is not meant absolutely to say that every man should become a Missionary, in the proper sense of the term. "There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord" . While one has that ministration of the Spirit which leads him to go and preach the gospel in person, another shows that he is guided by the same Spirit in carefully supplying the wants of him who thus goes "taking nothing of the Heathen" , from the abundance yielded by devoted diligence in his honest vocation, and by rigid habits of self-denial.

Again, consider the important command, "Love thy neighbour as thyself" . Can we, with any truth, be said to love that neighbour as ourselves, whom we suffer to starve, whilst we have enough and to spare? May I not appeal to any, who have experienced the Joy of knowing the unspeakable gift of God, and ask--Would you exchange this knowledge, with all the comforts and blessings it has been the means of imparting, for a hundred worlds, were they offered? Let us not then withhold the means by which others may obtain this sanctifying knowledge and heavenly consolation. Is it a profitable employment of our wealth, to raise it as a bulwark against those difficulties, which, if they meet even the children's children of the servants of God, are sent as especial proofs of their Father's love--for what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not?--and are designed to work out for them a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory? Are not these very difficulties, dangers, and afflictions, against which we so anxiously desire to provide, the very marks by which Jesus Christ himself, his Apostles and Prophets, and all the chosen servants of God, have ever been distinguished, and the means by which they have been perfected. Can then our wealth be so beneficially employed, either with reference to our own advantage or that of others, in removing from our Christian course these means of advancement, and characteristics of our profession, as in helping on the Kingdom of Christ with all that energy which a single eye can impart to the most limited powers, when directed and sustained by the Spirit of God?

It has been remarked that some pious men have, from their imprudence, left their children a burden upon the Christian public, and thus disgraced their profession. If, however, the unprovided state of these children was owing to an enlarged view of devotedness to God on the part of these Parents, accompanied by frugal appropriations to themselves, and that strict honour and honesty, which must ever precede beneficence to others; all the disgrace, and ultimately all the loss, must rest on those that survive, who are so dead to the privileges of the Gospel, as either to forget that it was ever said,--"Whosoever receivers one such little one in my name, receivers me" , or to neglect the opportunity, despise the honour, and spurn away the blessing, of entertaining such a guest. Oh! if we really believed our Saviour's declaration, how dearly should we value, and how warmly embrace, such an opportunity of glorifying our Master, of blessing ourselves, and of showing again to the world "how these Christians love one another"! All our misconceptions on this subject seem to arise from one deeply rooted opinion, learnt of Satan and the world over which he presides, that riches and comforts are better for our children, than poverty and dependence. The whole tenor of the New Testament, however, pronounces the opinion to be false; and were a hundred individuals appointed to the once of choosing a portion for their children, in accordance with the obvious principles of Christianity, and with the declarations of its Author and his Apostles--such a portion as bore the most favourable aspect on the acquisition of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus; and were they conscientiously to perform their office, they would all unite in choosing a portion poor and dependent. Yet whilst our Lord says: "How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God! "--we act just as though he had said--How hardly shall they enter in, who are without them! Here I would leave the sovereignty of the Lord unlimited. It is doubtless the same thing to Him to work by many or by few--by the rich or the poor: but still "how hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven" must stand.

If there had been an unerring physician of the body sent to a consumptive family who left it as his prescription: "How hardly shall they survive the climate of the North; it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than your children escape destruction in the blasts of the North"; if after this you saw the parents struggling for northern climates, you must say they either did not believe the physician, or they were deliberately doing what they could to destroy their children.

Again I say, let me not be misunderstood, as though I wished to make all Christianity consist in giving up money, time, and talents, unless they are the expressions of love to the Lord, and flow from a desire to meet His mind and promote his glory, they are but sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. Yet surely, they are the natural external expressions of internal love; and although they be insincerely assumed by Hypocrisy, it is her homage to truth; and although the self-righteous Pharisee may present the semblance of devotion, as a vain and hateful barter for heaven, yet it requires very little spirituality of mind to discern that this arises in a different source and terminates in a different object: the one begins in self and ends in self; the other begins in Christ, and ends in Christ. When, therefore, the Lord requires his Church to be careful for nothing, it is only that He might display his watchfulness and carefulness over her. Surely it is a most unspeakable privilege to be allowed to cast all our cares upon God; and to feel that we are thereby delivered from the slavery of earthly expectations, and made free to speak the truth m love, without fear or apprehension? What is the glorious liberty of the children of God, but to be dependent only upon One, "who giveth liberally and upbraideth not,"--who says,--"Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth: and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." God, in pity to our weakness and unbelief, condescends to reason with us thus:--"What man is there of you, whom, if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father, which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him?" . Let us therefore do the will of such a Father to the utmost of our ability now, and trust him for the future: "for he hath said, 'I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee'; so that we may boldly say, 'The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear, what man shall do unto me'" . "Trust therefore in the Lord, and do good; and verily thou shalt be fed" . Oh! if every one, who believed himself ransomed by the precious blood of Christ, felt himself so entirely the purchased possession of Him, who thus so dearly bought him, as to determine henceforth to know nothing save Jesus Christ and him crucified; nor to labour for anything, but that the unspeakably glad tidings of salvation through Him might be spread throughout the world, till every heart of the ransomed family drank of the same overflowing cup of consolation; how soon would the wants of the whole habitable earth be answered by thousands crying out,--"Here am I, send me"; while those sheep to whom the glad tidings would be borne, would discern the shepherd's voice, receive with thankfulness such messengers of peace, seeing by their fruits "that God was in them of a truth".

Think not that this is carrying things too far. Our blessed Lord says,--"This is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you" . Here our Blessed Lord tells us to love one another, as He has loved us; and then points to the laying down his life, as the most exalted proof of that love which could be given. If then, as the example of our Saviour and the exhortation of the Apostle testify, "we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren" how much more ought we to impart to them our substance.

We all know what a persuasive power the deaths of the Martyrs exerted on the minds of those who witnessed them; and, in its just measure and proportion, would the dedication of property, time and talents, have a similar effect at the present day. It would convince those, whom we are anxious to convince, of the reality of our faith in that Redeemer and that inheritance, which they now think only a name, in consequence of the secular spirit that disfigures the Christianity of too many of its professors. How differently would the Heathen look on our endeavours to publish the mercy of our glorified Lord, if the hardy and suffering spirit of primitive times were to descend again on the silken age into which we are fallen! and if they perceived in us that love which led them to endure all things for the elect's sake, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. Example is a far more fruitful source of self-denial than the influence exerted on the mind by precept. If we call on those, who know nothing of the savour of that Name which is as ointment poured forth, to give up all for Christ, and this you literally do to every Hindoo and Mahomedan; let us, who thus call, and who profess to know much of the power of His Name, do so likewise; that they may catch a kindred spirit from a living exhibition. Let us evidence, in very deed, that we love not the world, neither the things of the world, but that the love of the Father is in us. "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he, that doeth the will of God, abideth for ever" .

Let us, therefore, begin with the consideration of our children, as it regards their apprehension of this spirit of our Lord's kingdom. There is no one calling himself a Christian, who does not profess to desire, and there is no one really a Christian, who does not in earnest desire for his children, both the apprehension and attainment of this blessing. The lips of all, and the hearts of the saints continually declare it as their wish that their children may receive the word of truth, "not as the word of man, but as it is indeed the word of God";--that they may esteem and receive it as "a lamp unto their feet and a light unto their paths";--that they may prize it as the greatest and best gift of God, next to Him of whom it bears testimony and to whom it owes its preciousness. How then is a Christian to direct most powerfully and practically, the opening and susceptible minds of his children towards this Word of Truth? Is it to be done by exhibiting to them a life devoted to the study of that word, as revealing the will of Him whom he loves, and Him of whom it testifies, so that they may attach true ideas to true words, following simply its precepts as judging them concerning all things, to be right for himself, and promoting the extension of this knowledge as equally essential to others;--by a dedication of time and talents to this end;--by habits of continued self-denial, having for their object the acquisition of greater means towards the accomplishment of a work for which he would have them to believe that Jesus their Lord left the bosom of his Father and descended to earth, and for the furtherance of which Apostles and Martyrs regarded all;--temporal advantages as loss, and were ready to suffer the privation of them all? Or is it to be done by speaking, in very high terms, of the excellence and importance of the work;--by accompanying the words with a gift of one, five, fifty, or a hundred pounds a year for the promotion of it, but, in other respects, providing for temporal conveniences and enjoyments like the world? As long as the human mind is capable of being influenced by example, the first of these two exhibitions must exert the most powerful influence on the youthful mind. It must have a direct and almost invincible tendency to impress that mind with a conviction of the sincerity of our love of the Truth, of the reality of our devotion towards its great Author, of our deep feeling of its necessity as the only guide to purity and happiness, and of our ardent desire that all men may know and receive and embrace it. And although all this is infinitely removed from a work of grace on the soul, the almighty work of the Spirit of God; yet they may be, and continually are, the instruments he uses for arresting the sinner, and turning his attention to Jesus, and leading beyond the apprehension of the truth--in the understanding, to the Author and Finisher of faith for the realization of it in the heart. But, on the contrary, every appropriation towards providing temporal comforts, and conveniences, and pleasures, either for them or for ourselves, has a tendency directly the reverse. It shows that there is, in this value for the world, a rival interest in the heart; it weakens their conviction of our sincerity; and lessens, in exact proportion to its amount, the practical conviction on their minds--that there is but "one thing needful" in our estimation.

The true servant of God knows, better than any man, the real value of money, the value of time, the value of talent of whatever order. He is accordingly the most assiduous in his vocation, the most parsimonious of his time, the most anxious to improve his talents so far as they are subservient to the interests of Christ's Kingdom. He knows that the mysterious dealings of God have most intimately connected us in the ways of his providence, with the salvation of one another. He knows also that there is no means, humbly laid at the foot of the cross, which He, who hung there, does not bless, and send forth, with the blessing resting on it, to accomplish purposes of mercy.

As to laying up for children, believing it to be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Gospel, and therefore to the best interests of the children themselves, I have no hesitation in saying that, on these grounds, I am persuaded it ought to be relinquished--as much so, as spending our means on the selfish indulgence of our own inclinations. The reason indeed of the commands, exhortations, and encouragements to abstain from all such provision, appears as obvious, from every day's experience, as that of any single command in the Scripture; so that it manifestly would be the happiness of a child of God to pursue the conduct thus enjoined by his Lord, even if revelation was far less explicit on the subject, than it clearly and undeniably is. A "single eye" can alone secure our fidelity in the discharge of a stewardship so peculiarly trying as that with which the wealthy among us are entrusted. The circumstances of such a stewardship have a remarkable power in directing and drawing our affections toward improper objects; in fixing them upon others in an inordinate degree; in leading us to misapprehend the nature of true happiness, and to estimate things by a standard entirely at variance with the plainest, and most frequently reiterated declarations of the Gospel. If, therefore, under such circumstances, personal conveniences and indulgences, the elevation of self in the world, under the thousand alluring masks which Satan provides for those who wish to wear them, as means, he tells them, of influence, be allowed any weight in the argument, we may easily determine the judgment which will go forth; you will see every man looking on his own things, not on the things of others. Nay, is not this now the aspect, even of the professing Church of Christ? Should any one rise, and say, However this may be with others, it does not apply to me. I give a guinea to this, and a guinea to that, and a guinea to another; I might say, Yes, and as many hundreds, it may be thousands to Self, whose desires were to be mortified and solicitations curtailed.

How much would the judgment of the Christian World be modified with regard to the Leadings of Providence, if the eye had always the glory of God as the single object on which it rested! If that glory were our only aim, we should be all led to press forward, in the path to affluence and honours, with a more fluttering step and chastened energy. How slowly would a servant of Christ, who profitably labours among many thousand souls with a bare subsistence, be led to interpret the possibility of obtaining a more abundant provision into a leading of providence which encourages and demands his removal. He might, on the other hand, be led sometimes even to suspect the possibility of its being only a temptation of Satan, laid in his way, with a view of limiting the held of his usefulness. That malicious and powerful Spirit doubtless now tempts the servant, as he once did his Lord, by saying,--"All this power will I give thee and this glory: for that is delivered unto me: and to whomsoever I will, I give it. If thou, therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine" . We should never forget that this power of Satan over the world and the things of the world, is acknowledged by our Saviour himself, when he calls him "the prince of this world" . With the solicitations of this "Prince of Darkness" coming, as he often does, in the form of "an angel of light" there concur affections of our nature, called tender and amiable. The whole heart is misled; the judgment is biassed; and the understanding darkened. He, on the contrary, who considers and uses an increase of means only as a sacred deposit, committed to him for the extension of Christ's Kingdom, and not for individual aggrandizement, is liable to no such deception with respect to the Leadings of Providence. He has no personal interest in the pecuniary advantages attendant on any situation; and his only question is--whether it be one in which he may best serve and glorify his Master. When his heavenly Father sends him prosperity beyond what is sufficient for his immediate wants, he does not ask himself--May not I possibly need this superabundance at some future period? or, if I never require it myself, may not my Wife, or Children, or Relatives? He dares not to ask a question so full of unbelief, nor presumes to turn the very abundance of the past mercies of God into an argument against trusting Him for the future. He knows that the best security for all spiritual blessings and all temporal mercies, both to himself and to his friends, lies in doing the will, and trusting unreservedly in the promises: of that God who hath said:--"Can a mother forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the fruit of her womb? Yea, she may forget; yet will not I forget thee" . What, therefore, he has freely received, he freely gives; and trusts for the future the promises of his Heavenly Father, with a sincere, filial, and ingenuous confidence.

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