How beautiful the lines of George Herbert, where, after speaking of doing things 'for Christ's sake', he says:—
A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine;
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws
Makes that and the action fine.
The fact that you do your work in the spirit of your religion sanctifies your lives. It transforms them from secular to sacred. Your work and your worship spring from the same motive, and those who see this treat you and your work with respect. The Scripture puts it beautifully in speaking of the Apostles, 'The people took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus'.
Observe carefully how Zechariah combines the great and the commonplace. He says not only that the pots in the Lord's house shall be as sacred as the bowls before the altar, but that every pot and pan in the city shall be sanctified. The great point to be learned is that the Holiness of the home is to be as the Holiness of the Temple. The dedication which makes the bowls before the altar holy is also to sanctify the pots of the household, and the bells and trappings of the horses; the label which was written upon the priest's forehead, 'Holiness unto the Lord', is to be stamped upon the common things, in the street, in the shop, in the house—in fact, upon everything.
Get rid for ever of the idea that the affairs of human life are divided into things secular and things sacred; that business is separate from religion, and religion separate from business; that the consecration of certain hours to Meetings, to Bible-reading, or to religious work, is a different sort of thing from the devotion of other hours to labour, or eating, or physical necessities. Now, such a division may exist with some, but it cannot be allowed to exist in the lives of those who profess to have consecrated themselves to God.
In that case there is only one label for everything. For the meanest act, the commonest duty, the personal and private habits, there is only one motive, 'Holiness unto the Lord'. God's will, God's honour, God's service—these are on the labels. And—
The trivial round, the common task,