True Motive in Service
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our sorrows to His love, our wounds to His healing, our weakness
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to His strength, our emptiness to His fullness. Never has one been
disappointed who came unto Him. “They looked unto Him, and were
lightened: and their faces were not ashamed.”
Psalm 34:5
.
Those who seek God in secret telling the Lord their needs and
pleading for help, will not plead in vain. “Thy Father which seeth in
secret Himself shall reward thee openly.” As we make Christ our daily
companion we shall feel that the powers of an unseen world are all
around us; and by looking unto Jesus we shall become assimilated
to His image. By beholding we become changed. The character
is softened, refined, and ennobled for the heavenly kingdom. The
sure result of our intercourse and fellowship with our Lord will be to
increase piety, purity, and fervor. There will be a growing intelligence
in prayer. We are receiving a divine education, and this is illustrated
in a life of diligence and zeal.
The soul that turns to God for its help, its support, its power, by
daily, earnest prayer, will have noble aspirations, clear perceptions of
truth and duty, lofty purposes of action, and a continual hungering and
thirsting after righteousness. By maintaining a connection with God,
we shall be enabled to diffuse to others, through our association with
them, the light, the peace, the serenity, that rule in our hearts. The
strength acquired in prayer to God, united with persevering effort in
training the mind in thoughtfulness and care-taking, prepares one for
daily duties and keeps the spirit in peace under all circumstances.
If we draw near to God, He will put a word in our mouth to speak
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for Him, even praise unto His name. He will teach us a strain from the
song of the angels, even thanksgiving to our heavenly Father. In every
act of life, the light and love of an indwelling Saviour will be revealed.
Outward troubles cannot reach the life that is lived by faith in the Son
of God.
“When ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen
do.”—Matthew 6:7.
The heathen looked upon their prayers as having in themselves
merit to atone for sin. Hence the longer the prayer the greater the
merit. If they could become holy by their own efforts they would have
something in themselves in which to rejoice, some ground for boasting.