The faithful steward : $b or, systematic beneficence an essential of Christian characterClark, Sereno D. (Sereno Dickenson)
Religion
The faithful steward : $b or, systematic beneficence an essential of Christian character
Clark, Sereno D. (Sereno Dickenson)
Christian stewardship; Finance, Personal -- Religious aspects -- Christianity
2. That all right feeling is feeling as God does in the same
circumstances, and in respect to the same objects. There must be a holy
sympathy of soul with him,--a oneness of affection, of desire, of will,
of purpose. We must feel concerning ourselves as God does, who desires
to see our hearts burning with the same hallowed love that fills his
own. We must feel concerning sinners as the Father does, "who so loved
the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth
in him should not perish, but have everlasting life;"--as the Son, who
exchanged the abodes of peace for the abasement of flesh and the agonies
of the cross;--as the Holy Ghost, who is willing to dwell in our
polluted hearts, consuming the dross with his own vital energies. We
must imitate the angels, who, sympathizing with the Triune Jehovah,
strike their lyres with new and more rapturous hallelujahs at the
repentance of the returning sinner. No other feelings in kind or
strength, in proportion to our capacities, are right feelings. The
sacrifices of Christ were, indeed, stupendous; but we must be willing to
make as disinterested sacrifices for a perishing world; else we are not
in sympathy with our crucified Lord. Let us often visit the scenes of
his sufferings, hear the groans of Gethsemane, and witness the blood and
agony of the cross, and there learn what it means to have the same mind
"which was also in Christ Jesus." Let us make this love the great
standard of feeling and action, and cultivate the habit of trying
ourselves by this, and this alone; inquiring daily, "Oh, am I benevolent
as Christ?" "Do I sympathize with him over a ruined world?"
3. That God created us to occupy a position near himself. As all our
springs are in him, communion with him was to be our life and joy. We
were to be full of God; to see him everywhere and in everything, and to
value nothing only as the work of his power, the fruit of his love, or
as showing forth his praise. We were to dwell so far up the mount, that
earthly objects would appear insignificant; approach continually its
lofty summit, till our views of the world and the glory of it should
harmonize with God's views of them; for not only were our feelings to
accord with Jehovah's; but also our sentiments concerning sublunary
things were to be in unison with his own. So familiar were we to be
with the glories of our spiritual existence; our tastes and moral
sensibilities were designed, by intercourse with Infinite Purity, to
become so elevated and refined, that the glitterings of gold, and the
fascinations of wealth, would fail to charm. Our home was to be so near
the throne, that its light would perpetually shine in upon our souls;
its spirit always bathe our spirits; so that seraph-like, possessing the
benevolence of heaven, we should breathe the love of heaven on all
around.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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