| Devotional Hours with the Bible |
Chapter 16 |
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That is what should be said of the ministry of every one of us to others who turn to us with their needs, their heart-hungers, and their sorrows — we should be their comfort, strength and help. They should go away helped. We should always have bread in our hands to give to those who are hungry. We should always have cheer for those who come to us disheartened and discouraged. “Can I help thee?” should be our heart’s question, whoever it is that stands before us. The life Christ came to give is only love — God’s love poured into veins and through us to those who lack. It is more love we need when we cry out for more life and more power to do good. It is love that the world needs. Nothing else will make people happier or better. Ethics will not heal broken hearts, nor comfort those who are in sorrow, nor quiet a guilty conscience. The only abundant life is the life that is abundant in love.
How can we get this abundant life? Most of us are conscious of the poverty and thinness of our spiritual life. We faint easily under our burdens or in our struggles. We are not living victoriously. We are not filled with the spirit of Christ. We may have other things — we may have plenty of money; we may have pleasure, power, honor; our hands may be full of tasks. But there is only a little of God in us, only a little of heaven. Our brains may be teeming with plans, projects and dreams of success, but of spiritual life our veins are scant.
Christ came to give us just what we need — life. We can get it only from Him, and we can take it only as His gift. We have no conception, we who are merely living, with no great, strong, victorious life, what it is possible for us to become as Christians in this world, if only we would let the life of Christ possess us fully, wholly.
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