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The Desire of Ages
frost, did you remember that you were giving to the Lord of glory?
All the days of your life I was near you in the person of these afflicted
ones, but you did not seek Me. You would not enter into fellowship
with Me. I know you not.
Many feel that it would be a great privilege to visit the scenes of
Christ’s life on earth, to walk where He trod, to look upon the lake
beside which He loved to teach, and the hills and valleys on which His
eyes so often rested. But we need not go to Nazareth, to Capernaum,
or to Bethany, in order to walk in the steps of Jesus. We shall find His
footprints beside the sickbed, in the hovels of poverty, in the crowded
alleys of the great city, and in every place where there are human hearts
in need of consolation. In doing as Jesus did when on earth, we shall
walk in His steps.
All may find something to do. “The poor always ye have with
you,” (
John 12:8
), Jesus said, and none need feel that there is no place
where they can labor for Him. Millions upon millions of human souls
ready to perish, bound in chains of ignorance and sin, have never so
much as heard of Christ’s love for them. Were our condition and theirs
to be reversed, what would we desire them to do for us? All this, so
far as lies in our power, we are under the most solemn obligation to do
for them. Christ’s rule of life, by which every one of us must stand or
fall in the judgment, is, “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to
you, do ye even so to them.”
Matthew 7:12
.
The Saviour has given His precious life in order to establish a
church capable of caring for sorrowful, tempted souls. A company of
believers may be poor, uneducated, and unknown; yet in Christ they
may do a work in the home, the neighborhood, the church, and even in
“the regions beyond,” whose results shall be as far-reaching as eternity.
It is because this work is neglected that so many young disciples
never advance beyond the mere alphabet of Christian experience. The
light which was glowing in their own hearts when Jesus spoke to them,
“Thy sins be forgiven thee,” they might have kept alive by helping
those in need. The restless energy that is so often a source of danger
to the young might be directed into channels through which it would
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flow out in streams of blessing. Self would be forgotten in earnest
work to do others good.
Those who minister to others will be ministered unto by the Chief
Shepherd. They themselves will drink of the living water, and will be