An Abiding Motive

[Daily Devotional]

An Abiding Motive 

     For the love of Christ constraineth us. 2 Cor. 5:14.  

     In every act of life Christians should seek to represent Christ--
seek to make His service appear attractive. Let none make religion
repulsive by groans and sighs and a relation of their trials, their
self-denials, and sacrifices. Do not give the lie to your profession of
faith by impatience, fretfulness, and repining. Let the graces of the
Spirit be manifested in kindness, meekness, forbearance, cheerfulness,
and love. Let it be seen that the love of Christ is an abiding motive;
that your religion is not a dress to be put off and on to suit
circumstances, but a principle--calm, steady, unwavering. Alas that
pride, unbelief, and selfishness, like a foul cancer, are eating out
vital godliness from the heart of many a professed Christian! When
judged according to their works, how many will learn, too late, that
their religion was but a glittering cheat, unacknowledged by Jesus
Christ.  

     Love to Jesus will be seen, will be felt. It cannot be hidden. It
exerts a wondrous power. It makes the timid bold, the slothful diligent,
the ignorant wise. It makes the stammering tongue eloquent, and rouses
the dormant intellect into new life and vigor. It makes the desponding
hopeful, the gloomy joyous. Love to Christ will lead its possessor to
accept responsibilities for His sake, and to bear them in His strength.
Love to Christ will not be dismayed by tribulation, nor turned aside
from duty by reproaches.  

     Pure love is simple in its operations, and separate from every
other principle of action. When combined with earthly motives and
selfish interests, it ceases to be pure. God considers more with how
much love we work, than the amount we do. Love is a heavenly attribute.
The natural heart cannot originate it. This heavenly plant only
flourishes where Christ reigns supreme. Where love exists, there is
power and truth in the life. Love does good and nothing but good. Those
who have love bear fruit unto holiness, and in the end everlasting life.


>From That I May Know Him - Page 167