God’s love is such a generous love. He gives everything to His children. In Christ, God has given to you and me the very best that even He could give. “Shall He not also with Him freely give us all things?” “No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.”
Seeing then that God has given us the best gift of all, and that all good things are promised us on the one condition that we walk uprightly, does it not become us to expel all that is false from our worship and our lives? To be true to the core? To let words and actions be the harvest springing from the living grain of holy love in our hearts, watched, watered, cherished, guarded assiduously, lest it should die and our worship become a mere outward thing—straw, in place of true corn, the poor sham which human eyes could not detect, but the worthlessness of which is known to Him who is of purer eyes than to behold evil or to “look upon iniquity”?
When we think of it, does it not seem strange that “feigned lips,” wandering thoughts, outward reverence without any real adoration, can be permitted to pass current in our minds? We know that, in God’s sight, one little act of kindness done for His sake, one spark of love fanned into a flame which illumines the life of a fellow creature who is sitting in darkness and the very shadow of death; one honest effort after righteousness; one sentence of true prayer uttered with a sense of need by longing lips; one note of true, spontaneous praise and thanksgiving from a grateful heart; one cry for strength, light and needed grace, spoken in the fewest words that can express desire; each and all of these, though small in a sense, are precious and will not be forgotten. Mere grains they may be, but they are living grains—the seeds whence come grand harvests to God’s glory and our own good.
I have taken the higher and more important part of our subject first, but we will come down to a lower level and speak a little about carrying the same spirit of truth and thoroughness into our everyday work.
I hope we all feel that we ought to render of our very best to God, and to do this with full sincerity of purpose and of heart. Surely the same spirit should enter into all our dealings and intercourse with our neighbour. Whatever work may be entrusted to us, do not let us think how little will pass muster, but what is the best we can do, and then resolve on doing this.
We must never forget that whoever truly loves God will love his neighbour also, and will prove this in daily life and intercourse.
I want you, my dear girl friends, to be animated by this spirit in the home, whether you are a daughter or one who, in serving, serves also the Lord Christ. In the work-room too, where so much of the character and success of the employer depends on the thoroughness and conscientiousness of the workers.
Do not give the mother, the mistress, or the outside employer cause to complain that you put no heart into your work, or that, if you can do it without immediate loss to yourself, you will bestow less pains upon the portion which is below the surface and not likely to be so carefully examined as the rest. To act in such a manner is to render the merest eye-service. It is giving straw from which nearly all the golden grain has been taken away. It is fair-seeming, but unreal and untrue.
Little things sometimes illustrate important lessons. Some time ago, two girls undertook to dress a couple of dolls which were exactly alike and intended as presents for twin sisters, seven years old. Both were equally anxious to give pleasure to the little people, but they set about it in different ways. Each had the same amount to spend on clothes, which was not to be exceeded, but the details were left to themselves.
The one chose her materials less for show than for real fitness, and said to her friend, who was lost in choice amongst remnants of rich silks, “My doll is going to be just a little girl, not a fine lady.”