Saying and Doing
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ance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly
kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.”
2 Peter 1:2-7
.
If you cultivate faithfully the vineyard of your soul, God is making
you a laborer together with Himself. And you will have a work to do
not only for yourself, but for others. In representing the church as the
vineyard, Christ does not teach that we are to restrict our sympathies
and labors to our own numbers. The Lord’s vineyard is to be enlarged.
In all parts of the earth He desires it to be extended. As we receive the
instruction and grace of God, we should impart to others a knowledge
of how to care for the precious plants. Thus we may extend the
vineyard of the Lord. God is watching for evidence of our faith, love,
and patience. He looks to see if we are using every spiritual advantage
to become skillful workers in His vineyard on earth, that we may enter
the Paradise of God, that Eden home from which Adam and Eve were
excluded by transgression.
God stands toward His people in the relation of a father, and He
has a father’s claim to our faithful service. Consider the life of Christ.
Standing at the head of humanity, serving His Father, He is an example
of what every son should and may be. The obedience that Christ
rendered God requires from human beings today. He served His Father
with love, in willingness and freedom. “I delight to do Thy will, O
My God,” He declared; “yea, Thy law is within My heart.”
Psalm
40:8
. Christ counted no sacrifice too great, no toil too hard, in order to
accomplish the work which He came to do. At the age of twelve He
said, “Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?”
Luke
[283]
2:49
. He had heard the call, and had taken up the work. “My meat,”
He said, “is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.”
John 4:34
.
Thus we are to serve God. He only serves who acts up to the
highest standard of obedience. All who would be sons and daughters
of God must prove themselves co-workers with God and Christ and
the heavenly angels. This is the test for every soul. Of those who
faithfully serve Him the Lord says, “They shall be Mine, ... in that day
when I make up My jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth
his own son that serveth him.”
Malachi 3:17
.
God’s great object in the working out of His providences is to try
men, to give them opportunity to develop character. Thus He proves
whether they are obedient or disobedient to His commands. Good