SERVICE.
As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.—Joshua, xxiv. 15.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.—Romans, xii. 1.
Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh,
Not with eye-service as men-pleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.—Ephesians, vi. 5, 6.
Had I but served my God with half the zeal
I served my king, He would not, in mine age,
Have left me naked to mine enemies.
Shakspere.
To tell you truly what I wish to be,
And never would be other, if I could,
But in the comfort of the heaven’s decree
In soul and body that I ever should—
Though in the world, not to the world to live,
But to my God my service wholly give.
This would I be, and would none other be,
But a religious servant of my God;
And know there is none other God but He,
And willingly to suffer mercy’s rod;
Joy in His grace, and live but in His love,
And seek my bliss but in the heaven above.
Thus would I spend in service of my God
The ling’ring hours of these few days of mine,
To show how sin and death are overtrod
But by the virtue of the power divine;
Our thoughts but vain, our substance slime and dust,
And only Christ for our eternal trust.
Nicolas Breton.
Expect not more from servants than is just;
Reward them well, if they observe their trust,
Nor them with cruelty, or pride invade;
Since God and nature them our brothers made.
Denham.
A few forsake the throng; with lifted eyes,
Ask wealth of Heaven, and gain a real prize—
Truth, wisdom, grace, and peace like that above,
Sealed with His signet whom they serve and love.
Cowper.