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A New Year’s Message
| Bro Robert Roberts
S
ince last we sent our salutations, twelve
months have been added to our lives; and
it is important to pause and consider whether
that twelve months have been a period of
Christian activity and holiness, or a time of
worldliness and indifference. Let us never for-
get that Jesus, our Lord and Master, has sent
this Message to the Churches: “I will give to
every one of you according to his works,” (Rev.
ii.23), and has issued the inexorable decree
“The unprofitable servant shall be cast out”
(Matthew xxi.30). Are we fully alive to this?
Are we adding yearly to our stock of good
works – of profitable service? We cannot, it is
true, do all that we could wish – we cannot
altogether get at that blissful perfection
which, in our hearts, we may desire to attain;
but do we give our-
selves as much ordi-
nary concern to be
profitable servants of
Christ as we do to be
prosperous and re-
spected in worldly
matters? Are we
equally good Chris-
tians as we are good
tradesmen and men
of business? Are we as
much interested in
the future as we are
in the present? Do we
love Christ and his
precious promises as
much as we do this
world and its concerns? It is to be feared that
if these questions were very truthfully
answered, most of us would be found lamen-
tably shortcoming. Most of us can understand,
argue, and perhaps preach about the glorious
gospel of the blessed God. Most of us can give
a reason for the blessed hope of life that is
within us; but it is to be feared that in too
many instances we carry our faith more in our
heads than our hearts – having our understand-
ings enlightened but our affections little soft-
ened by that gracious love of Christ which
passeth all understanding. It is perhaps but too
true of most of us that while we may know
sound doctrine, we fail in the practical part of
Christianity, being but superficially acquainted
with the precepts, as affecting our everyday
behaviour, and still more backward in obeying
them when we know them. In a word, the
good seed may have been sown in our hearts,
and yet the fruit may be of tardy growth on
account of the abundance and vigour of those
other plants which find but too ready a vege-
tation in its soil. It is to be feared that we
allow ourselves to be influenced by the
strongly secular spirit of the age, and our
Christianity to be diluted with prevailing
worldliness. Let us fear! For neither the
worldly-minded nor the lukewarm shall inherit
the kingdom of God. Let us guard against faint
heartedness. Let us strive to make our
Christianity honest,
straightforward and
unblushing. We are
apt to be overridden
by the external
circumstances of the
time. Let it be other-
wise. Let our charac-
ters be known in our
circles; let our light
shine in the sur-
rounding darkness;
and so may we glo-
rify our Father in
heaven and receive
His approval at last.
With regard to the
affairs of this life, hear the words of our
beloved Master: “Take no thought for tomor-
row, saying, What shall we eat? Or what shall
we drink? Or wherewithal shall we be clothed?
(for after all these things the Gentiles seek),
for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye
have need of these things; but seek ye first
the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and
all those things shall be added unto you.”
(Matt. vi.31-33). How very few of us act in this
spirit? Are we not apt to worry ourselves about
the affairs of this life? Are we not apt to make
them the chief subject of our thoughts, and
~ continued ...