Expositions of Holy Scripture: Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. JohnMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. Ephesians -- Commentaries; Bible. Epistle of John, 1st -- Commentaries; Bible. Peter -- Commentaries
Now many of us, who entirely agree, theoretically, in saying that all
life is granted for this highest purpose, go wrong here and fail to
discern the significance of single moments. To-day is always
commonplace; it is yesterday that is beautiful, and to-morrow that is
full of possibilities, to the vulgar mind. But to-day is common and low.
There are mountains ahead and mountains behind, purple with distance and
radiant with sunshine, and the sky bends over them and seems to touch
their crests. But here, on the spot where we stand, life seems flat and
mean, and far away from the heavens. We admit the meaning of life taken
altogether, but it is very hard to break up that recognition into
fragments, and to feel the worth of these fleeting moments which, just
because they are here, seem to be of small account. So we forget that
life is only the aggregate of small present instants, and that the hour
is sixty times sixty insignificant seconds, and the day twenty-four
brief hours, and the year 365 commonplace days, and the life threescore
years and ten. Brethren, carry your theoretical recognition of the
greatness and solemnity of the purposes for which life has been given
here into each of the moments of the passing day, and you will find that
there is nothing so elastic as time; and that you can crowd into a day
as much as a languid thousand years do sometimes hold, of sacrifice and
service, of holy joys, and of likeness to Jesus Christ. He who has
learned that all the moments are heavy with significance, and pregnant
with immortal issues, he, too, in some measure may share in the
prerogative of the timeless God, and to Him 'one day may be as a
thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.' It is not the beat of
the pendulum or the tick of the clock that measure time, but it is the
deeds which we crowd into it, and the feelings and thoughts which it
ministers to us. This passing life draws all its importance from the
boundless eternal issues to which it leads. Every little puddle on the
paving-stones this morning, a quarter of an inch broad and a film deep,
will be mirroring bright sunshine, and blue with the reflected heaven.
And so we may make the little drop of our lives radiant with the image
of God, and bright with the certainties of immortality.
II. Now, note secondly, how to make the most of the season.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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