| Week-Day Religion |
Chapter 12 |
Page 3 |
There is no other attitude in which we can stand to those about us in which we can fulfill the law of Christian love, which requires us to do good to all men. We must not think of ourselves as deserving attention from others. We are not in this world to be made much of, to be waited upon and served. The moment we begin to relate ourselves in this way to others we cease to be largely helpful, or helpful at all in the Christian sense. We measure every one then by his ability and willingness to serve us. We rate others as they are, in our estimation, agreeable or disagreeable. Repulsiveness repels us because we think of it only in its effect upon our own feelings and tastes. We love pleasant people only, are kind only to those that are kind to us, and serve only those whom we regard as honorable and worthy. Rude treatment from others shuts our hearts toward them. In a word, we do nothing from disinterested motives and seek always our own. This may make us very pleasant and agreeable in the small circle of our personal friends, and even in business and social life, but it is infinitely removed from the spirit and practice of true Christian love and service.
We are to regard ourselves as the servants of others for Jesus’ sake. We are to put ourselves before men as our Master did, not asking what benefit or help we can get from them, but what we can do for them. It will be seen at a glance that if we look upon others in this disinterested way, our hearts yearning to do them good, the whole aspect of the world will be changed. We are not here to receive and to gather, but to give and to scatter – not to be served and treated generously, but to serve regardless of men’s character or their treatment of us. This invests every human life with a wondrous sacredness. It brings down our pride and keeps it under our feet. It changes scorn to compassion. It softens our tones and takes from us our haughty, dictatorial spirit. Instead of being repelled by men’s moral repulsiveness, our pity is stirred and our hearts go out in deep, loving longing to heal and to bless them. Instead of being offended by men’s rudeness and unkindness, we bear patiently with their faults, hoping to do them good. Nothing that they may do to us turns our love to hate. We continue to seek their interest despite their slights, insults and cruelties. We are glad to spend and be spent for others even though the more abundantly we love them the less they love us.
With this spirit it is no longer hard to do good to the most disagreeable people, to help the most unworthy. It is easy, then, to love our enemies in the only way it is possible for us to love them. We cannot love them as we do our friends. We cannot approve their faults or commend their immoralities or make black white. We cannot make ourselves think their characters beautiful when they are full of repulsiveness or their conduct right when it is manifestly wrong. Love plays no such tricks with our moral perceptions. It does not hoodwink us or make us color blind. It does not make us tolerant of sin or indifferent to men’s blemishes. Christ never lowered, by so much as a hair’s breadth, the perfect standard of holiness by which he measured all men and all life. Nor must we. We are ever to keep living in our souls the pure and unspotted ideal. We are not to look upon any sin leniently or apologetically, and yet we are to love the sinner, to pity him and have compassion upon him, and instead of turning away from him in horror and self righteous pride we are to seek by every means to lift him up and save him. Under all the ruin of his sin is the shattered beauty of the divine image which the gentle fingers of love may repair and restore.
Page 3
<< Prior Page 1 2 3 Next Page >>