Settle it in your heart that it is the sum of all business and blessedness to live to God.
John Wesley
The glory is not in the task, but in doing it for Him.
Jean Ingelow
The object of our life determines its character. What we live for tells what we are. If a man’s aim is to get rich, if that is the ruling motive of his life, greed for gold is his absorbing passion. If a man lives to do good to his fellow men, if this is his single purpose, the desire will inspire all his thoughts and actions.
It is interesting to put ourselves to the test to discover just what the real purpose of our living is. When we know this we can tell whither our life is tending, what it will be when it is finished, what impression we are making on the world, and what our living means to God.
That which distinguishes a Christian life from others is that it is God’s. We belong to God. To live to any other, therefore, is disloyalty and idolatry. St. Paul in one of his epistles asserts this truth very strongly. He says, “None of us liveth to himself, and none dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord; whether we liver therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.” All our relations are with the Lord. To him we owe our full obedience – we have no other master. It is his work we are doing, whether it be what we call secular work, or whether it be what we consider religious work. In all our acts, words, thoughts, feelings, we are living to the Lord, if we are living worthily. We may not be conscious of this relation, but whether we are or not, it is to the Lord that we are living. We may not think definitely of God every time we speak, every time we do anything, but if we are sincere our desire always is to please God, to honour him, to have his approval. It is to the Lord that we must answer in judgment. “We shall all stand before the judgment seat of God … each one of us shall give account of himself to God.”
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