If we have been delivered from great sin or from great despair, should we not say in our souls, “Now, from this day I will be the constant student of Jesus Christ’s teaching. The gospel has done so much for me, that I will seek to know all of it that can be known this side the grave. I will pry into its mysteries, press into its spiritualities, and learn its precepts. And while I am a learner I will also be a follower. Where Christ is I will go. His example shall be law to me. I will pray to have his Spirit. I will ask to be conformed to his image, and what the Master was, that shall the servant be. I will give to him of my substance. If I can, I will give much, but if I have not much, I will give in fair proportion. I will make a system of offering to God: he shall have a set portion of all mine income, and that I will put aside, so that when there is a call for it, I shall not imagine that I am giving from my own purse, but I will give my Lord’s money, which has already been consecrated. Then I shall not feel us if I were giving, but as if I were only a steward, handing out what belonged to Christ before?"
Where persons love little, do little, and give little, we may shrewdly suspect that they have never had much affliction of heart for their sins and that they think they owe but very little to divine grace.
From a sermon entitled "Mary Magdalene," delivered January 29, 1868. Image by Rennett Stowe under Creative Commons License.
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