Call to Greater Earnestness
49
God demands that which we do not give,—unreserved consecra-
tion. If every Christian had been true to the pledge made on accepting
Christ, so many in the world would not have been left to perish in sin.
Who will answer for the souls who have gone to the grave unprepared
to meet their Lord? Christ offered Himself as a complete sacrifice in
our behalf. How earnestly He worked to save sinners! How untiring
were His efforts to prepare His disciples for service! But how little
we have done! And the influence of the little that we have done has
been terribly weakened by the neutralizing effect of what we have
left undone, or undertaken and never brought to completion, and by
our habits of listless indifference. How much we have lost by failing
to press forward to accomplish our God-given work! As professed
Christians, we ought to be appalled by the outlook.—
The Review and
Herald, December 30, 1902
.
[54]
The Spirit of Sacrifice
The plan of salvation was laid in a sacrifice so broad and deep
and high that it is immeasurable. Christ did not send His angels to
this fallen world, while He remained in heaven; but He Himself went
without the camp, bearing the reproach. He became a man of sorrows,
and acquainted with grief; Himself took our infirmities, and bore our
weaknesses. And the absence of self-denial in His professed followers,
God regards as a denial of the Christian name. Those who profess
to be one with Christ, and indulge their selfish desires for rich and
expensive clothing, furniture, and food, are Christians only in name.
To be a Christian is to be Christlike.
And yet how true are the words of the apostle: “For all seek their
own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.” Many Christians do not
have works corresponding to the name they bear. They act as if they
had never heard of the plan of redemption wrought out at infinite cost.
The majority aim to make a name for themselves in the world; they
adopt its forms and ceremonies, and live for the indulgence of self.
They follow out their own purposes as eagerly as do the world, and
thus they cut off their power to help in establishing the kingdom of
God....
The work of God, which should be going forward with tenfold its
present strength and efficiency, is kept back, like a spring season held