| J.R. MIller | Page 15 |
Another phase of this call, as it comes to us in life’s quiet days, is to increased activity. We cannot fulfill our Master’s requirement for us as Christians unless we are ready for self-forgetful devotion to service. A birthday or the beginning of a new year is a most fitting time for renewed interest in Christian work. “Ye have compassed this mountain long enough.” That is, you have been going through the old rounds, living the old way, long enough. Is any one of us satisfied with the measure of work we have done for Christ during the past year, for example? “Teach one his own work,” is the rule of the kingdom. The work of the church is not meant to be done by any few rare souls merely. Some portion of it is to be done by each one, and that portion is not transferable. No one can do your work for you, for each one has enough of his own to fill his hands. No one can get any other to do his allotted task for him. All any one can do is his own little part. Are there any of us who have done nothing?
We need not press the question for the past, for what has not been done is its time cannot be done now. The hands that have been idle through a past year can do nothing in the new year to make up the lack. If you have left a blank where there ought to have been beautiful work done, there can be only a blank there forever. You cannot fill it now. Toil as you will any new year, you cannot make the year you left empty anything but empty. We cannot go back over our life and do omitted or neglected duties. Shall we not cease going round and round in the same little grooves, and turn northward, with our faces toward God and heaven? Our Master is not exacting, does not require of us what we cannot do. All expected of any one is his part, what he can do. No one is required to do the work of the whole world, but every one is required to be faithful in his own place. Lincoln said: “I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to the light I have.”
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