Christian Growth
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obeyed, His children walk in the light, and there is no occasion of
stumbling in them. They do not accept the world’s low standard, but
work from the Bible standpoint.
The selfishness which exists among God’s people is very offen-
sive to Him. The Scriptures denounce covetousness as idolatry. No
“covetous man,” says Paul, “who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in
the kingdom of Christ and of God.” The trouble with many is that they
have too little faith. Like the rich man in the parable they want to see
their supplies piled up in their granaries. The world is to be warned,
and God wants us wholly engaged in His work; but men have so much
to do to forward their money-making projects that they have no time
to push the triumphs of the cross of Christ. They have neither time
nor disposition to put their intellect, tact, and energy into the cause of
God.
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Brethren and sisters, I wish to excite in your minds disgust for
your present limited ideas of God’s cause and work. I want you to
comprehend the great sacrifice that Christ made for you when He
became poor, that through His poverty you might come into possession
of eternal riches. Oh! do not, by your indifference to the eternal weight
of glory which is within your reach, cause angels to weep and hide
their faces in shame and disgust. Arouse from your lethargy; arouse
every God-given faculty, and work for precious souls for whom Christ
died. These souls, if brought to the fold of Christ, will live through the
ceaseless ages of eternity; and will you plan to do as little as possible
for their salvation, while, like the man with the one talent, you invest
your means in the earth? Like that unfaithful servant, are you charging
God with reaping where He has not sown, and gathering where He has
not strewed?
All that you have and are belongs to God. Then will you not say
from the heart: “All things come of Thee, and of Thine own have we
given Thee”? “Honor the Lord with thy substance, and with the first
fruits of all thine increase.” Paul thus exhorts his Corinthian brethren
to Christian beneficence: “As ye abound in everything, in faith, and
utterance, and knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love to
us, see that ye abound in this grace also.” In his epistle to Timothy
he says: “Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not
high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who
giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich