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Christ’s Object Lessons
Only when selfishness is dead, when strife for supremacy is ban-
ished, when gratitude fills the heart, and love makes fragrant the life—
it is only then that Christ is abiding in the soul, and we are recognized
as laborers together with God.
However trying their labor, the true workers do not regard it as
drudgery. They are ready to spend and to be spent; but it is a cheerful
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work, done with a glad heart. Joy in God is expressed through Jesus
Christ. Their joy is the joy set before Christ—“to do the will of Him
that sent Me, and to finish His work.”
John 4:34
. They are in co-
operation with the Lord of glory. This thought sweetens all toil, it
braces the will, it nerves the spirit for whatever may befall. Working
with unselfish heart, ennobled by being partakers of Christ’s sufferings,
sharing His sympathies, and co-operating with Him in His labor, they
help to swell the tide of His joy and bring honor and praise to His
exalted name.
This is the spirit of all true service for God. Through a lack of this
spirit, many who appear to be first will become last, while those who
possess it, though accounted last, will become first.
There are many who have given themselves to Christ, yet who
see no opportunity of doing a large work or making great sacrifices
in His service. These may find comfort in the thought that it is not
necessarily the martyr’s self-surrender which is most acceptable to
God; it may not be the missionary who has daily faced danger and
death that stands highest in heaven’s records. The Christian who is
such in his private life, in the daily surrender of self, in sincerity of
purpose and purity of thought, in meekness under provocation, in faith
and piety, in fidelity in that which is least, the one who in the home
life represents the character of Christ—such a one may in the sight of
God be more precious than even the world-renowned missionary or
martyr.
Oh, how different are the standards by which God and men measure
character. God sees many temptations resisted of which the world and
even near friends never know—temptations in the home, in the heart.
He sees the soul’s humility in view of its own weakness; the sincere
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repentance over even a thought that is evil. He sees the wholehearted
devotion to His service. He has noted the hours of hard battle with
self—battle that won the victory. All this God and angels know. A