Kept for the Master's Use Part 2

But the sanctified and Christ-loving heart cannot be satisfied with only negative keeping. We do not want only to be kept from displeasing Him, but to be kept always pleasing Him. Every 'kept _from_' should have its corresponding and still more blessed 'kept _for_.' We do not want our moments to be simply kept from Satan's use, but kept for His use; we want them to be not only kept from sin, but kept for His praise.

Do you ask, 'But what use can he make of mere moments?' I will not stay to prove or ill.u.s.trate the obvious truth that, as are the moments so will be the hours and the days which they build. You understand that well enough. I will answer your question as it stands.

Look back through the history of the Church in all ages, and mark how often a great work and mighty influence grew out of a mere moment in the life of one of G.o.d's servants; a mere moment, but overshadowed and filled with the fruitful power of the Spirit of G.o.d. The moment may have been spent in uttering five words, but they have fed five thousand, or even five hundred thousand. Or it may have been lit by the flash of a thought that has shone into hearts and homes throughout the land, and kindled torches that have been borne into earth's darkest corners. The rapid speaker or the lonely thinker little guessed what use his Lord was making of that single moment. There was no room in it for even a thought of that. If that moment had not been, though perhaps unconsciously, 'kept for Jesus,' but had been otherwise occupied, what a harvest to His praise would have been missed!

The same thing is going on every day. It is generally a moment--either an opening or a culminating one--that really does the work. It is not so often a whole sermon as a single short sentence in it that wings G.o.d's arrow to a heart. It is seldom a whole conversation that is the means of bringing about the desired result, but some sudden turn of thought or word, which comes with the electric touch of G.o.d's power. Sometimes it is less than that; only a look (and what is more momentary?) has been used by Him for the pulling down of strongholds. Again, in our own quiet waiting upon G.o.d, as moment after moment glides past in the silence at His feet, the eye resting upon a page of His Word, or only looking up to Him through the darkness, have we not found that He can so irradiate one pa.s.sing moment with His light that its rays never die away, but s.h.i.+ne on and on through days and years? Are not such moments proved to have been kept for Him? And if some, why not all?

This view of moments seems to make it clearer that it is impossible to serve two masters, for it is evident that the service of a moment cannot be divided. If it is occupied in the service of self, or any other master, it is not at the Lord's disposal; He cannot make use of what is already occupied.

Oh, how much we have missed by not placing them at his disposal! What might He not have done with the moments freighted with self or loaded with emptiness, which we have carelessly let drift by! Oh, what might have been if they had all been kept for Jesus! How He might have filled them with His light and life, enriching our own lives that have been impoverished by the waste, and using them in far-spreading blessing and power!

While we have been undervaluing these fractions of eternity, what has our gracious G.o.d been doing in them? How strangely touching are the words, 'What is man, that Thou shouldest set Thine heart upon him, and that Thou shouldest visit him every morning, and _try him every moment?_' Terribly solemn and awful would be the thought that He has been trying us every moment, were it not for the yearning gentleness and love of the Father revealed in that wonderful expression of wonder, 'What is man, that Thou shouldest set Thine heart upon him?' Think of that ceaseless setting of His heart upon us, careless and forgetful children as we have been! And then think of those other words, none the less literally true because given under a figure: 'I, the Lord, do keep it; _I will water it every moment._'

We see something of G.o.d's infinite greatness and wisdom when we try to fix our dazzled gaze on infinite s.p.a.ce. But when we turn to the marvels of the microscope, we gain a clearer view and more definite grasp of these attributes by gazing on the perfection of His infinitesimal handiworks. Just so, while we cannot realize the infinite love which fills eternity, and the infinite vistas of the great future are 'dark with excess of light' even to the strongest telescopes of faith, we see that love magnified in the microscope of the moments, brought very close to us, and revealing its unspeakable perfection of detail to our wondering sight.

But we do not see this as long as the moments are kept in our own hands.

We are like little children closing our fingers over diamonds. How can they receive and reflect the rays of light, a.n.a.lyzing them into all the splendour of their prismatic beauty, while they are kept shut up tight in the dirty little hands? Give them up; let our Father hold them for us, and throw His own great light upon them, and then we shall see them full of fair colours of His manifold loving-kindnesses; and let Him always keep them for us, and then we shall always see His light and His love reflected in them.

And then, surely, they shall be filled with praise. Not that we are to be always singing hymns, and using the expressions of other people's praise, any more than the saints in glory are always literally singing a new song. But praise will be the tone, the colour, the atmosphere in which they flow; none of them away from it or out of it.

Is it a little too much for them all to 'flow in ceaseless praise'? Well, where will you stop? What proportion of your moments do you think enough for Jesus? How many for the spirit of praise, and how many for the spirit of heaviness? Be explicit about it, and come to an understanding. If He is not to have all, then _how much?_ Calculate, balance, and apportion.

You will not be able to do this in heaven--you know it will be all praise there; but you are free to halve your service of praise here, or to make the proportion what you will.

Yet,--He made you for His glory.

Yet,--He chose you that you should be to the praise of His glory.

Yet,--He loves you every moment, waters you every moment, watches you unslumberingly, cares for you unceasingly.

Yet,--He died for you!

Dear friends, one can hardly write it without tears. Shall you or I remember all this love, and hesitate to give all our moments up to Him?

Let us entrust Him with them, and ask Him to keep them all, every single one, for His own beloved self, and fill them _all_ with His praise, and let them _all_ be to His praise!

Chapter III.

Our Hands Kept for Jesus.

_'Keep my hands, that they may move_ _At the impulse of Thy love.'_

When the Lord has said to us, 'Is thine heart right, as My heart is with thy heart?' the next word seems to be, 'If it be, give Me thine hand.'

What a call to confidence, and love, and free, loyal, happy service is this! and how different will the result of its acceptance be from the old lamentation: 'We labour and have no rest; we have given the hand to the Egyptians and to the a.s.syrians.' In the service of these 'other lords,'

under whatever shape they have presented themselves, we shall have known something of the meaning of having 'both the hands full with travail and vexation of spirit.' How many a thing have we 'taken in hand,' as we say, which we expected to find an agreeable task, an interest in life, a something towards filling up that unconfessed 'aching void' which is often most real when least acknowledged; and after a while we have found it change under our hands into irksome travail, involving perpetual vexation of spirit! The thing may have been of the earth and for the world, and then no wonder it failed to satisfy even the instinct of work, which comes natural to many of us. Or it may have been right enough in itself, something for the good of others so far as we understood their good, and unselfish in all but unravelled motive, and yet we found it full of tangled vexations, because the hands that held it were not simply consecrated to G.o.d. Well, if so, let us bring these soiled and tangle-making hands to the Lord, 'Let us lift up our heart with our hands' to Him, asking Him to clear and cleanse them.

If He says, 'What is that in thine hand?' let us examine honestly whether it is something which He can use for His glory or not. If not, do not let us hesitate an instant about dropping it. It may be something we do not like to part with; but the Lord is able to give thee much more than this, and the first glimpse of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus your Lord will enable us to count those things loss which were gain to us.

But if it is something which He can use, He will make us do ever so much more with it than before. Moses little thought what the Lord was going to make him do with that 'rod in his hand'! The first thing he had to do with it was to 'cast it on the ground,' and see it pa.s.s through a startling change. After this he was commanded to take it up again, hard and terrifying as it was to do so. But when it became again a rod in his hand, it was no longer what it was before, the simple rod of a wandering desert shepherd. Henceforth it was 'the rod of G.o.d in his hand' (Ex. iv.

20), wherewith he should do signs, and by which G.o.d Himself would do 'marvellous things' (Ps. lxxviii. 12).

If we look at any Old Testament text about consecration, we shall see that the marginal reading of the word is, 'fill the hand' (_e. g._ Ex.

xxviii. 41; 1 Chron. xxix. 5). Now, if our hands are full of 'other things,' they cannot be filled with 'the things that are Jesus Christ's'; there must be emptying before there can be any true filling. So if we are sorrowfully seeing that our hands have not been kept for Jesus, let us humbly begin at the beginning, and ask Him to empty them thoroughly, that He may fill them completely.

For they _must_ be emptied. Either we come to our Lord willingly about it, letting Him unclasp their hold, and gladly dropping the glittering weights they have been carrying, or, in very love, He will have to force them open, and wrench from the reluctant grasp the 'earthly things' which are so occupying them that He cannot have His rightful use of them. There is only one other alternative, a terrible one,--to be let alone till the day comes when not a gentle Master, but the relentless king of terrors shall empty the trembling hands as our feet follow him out of the busy world into the dark valley, for 'it is certain we can carry nothing out.'

Yet the emptying and the filling are not all that has to be considered.

Before the hands of the priests could be filled with the emblems of consecration, they had to be laid upon the emblem of atonement (Lev.

viii. 14, etc.). That came first. 'Aaron and his sons laid their hands upon the head of the bullock for the sin-offering.' So the transference of guilt to our Subst.i.tute, typified by that act, must precede the dedication of ourselves to G.o.d.

'My faith would lay her hand On that dear head of Thine, While like a penitent I stand, And there confess my sin.'

The blood of that Holy Subst.i.tute was shed 'to make reconciliation upon the altar.' Without that reconciliation we cannot offer and present ourselves to G.o.d; but this being made, Christ Himself presents us. And you, that were sometime alienated, and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblamable and unreprovable in His sight.

Then Moses 'brought the ram for the burnt-offering; and Aaron and his sons laid their hands upon the head of the ram, and Moses burnt the whole ram upon the altar; it was a burnt-offering for a sweet savour, and an offering made by fire unto the Lord.' Thus Christ's offering was indeed a whole one, body, soul, and spirit, each and all suffering even unto death. These atoning sufferings, accepted by G.o.d for us, are, by our own free act, accepted by us as the ground of our acceptance.

Then, reconciled and accepted, we are ready for consecration; for then 'he brought the other ram; the ram of consecration; and Aaron and his sons laid their hands upon the head of the ram.' Here we see Christ, 'who is consecrated for evermore.' We enter by faith into union with Him who said, 'For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.'

After all this, their hands were filled with 'consecrations for a sweet savour,' so, after laying the hand of our faith upon Christ, suffering and dying for us, we are to lay that very same hand of faith, and in the very same way, upon Him as consecrated for us, to be the source and life and power of our consecration. And then our hands shall be filled with 'consecrations,' filled with Christ, and filled with all that is a sweet savour to G.o.d in Him.

'And who then is willing to fill his hand this day unto the Lord?' Do you want an added motive? Listen again: 'Fill your hands to-day to the Lord, that He may bestow upon you a blessing this day.' Not a long time hence, not even to-morrow, but 'this day.' Do you not want a blessing? Is not your answer to your Father's 'What wilt thou?' the same as Achsah's, 'Give me a blessing!' Here is His promise of just what you so want; will you not gladly fulfil His condition? A blessing shall immediately follow.

He does not specify what it shall be; He waits to reveal it. You will find it such a blessing as you had not supposed could be for you--a blessing that shall verily make you rich, with no sorrow added--a blessing _this day_.

All that has been said about consecration applies to our literal members.

Stay a minute, and look at your hand, the hand that holds this little book as you read it. See how wonderfully it is made; how perfectly fitted for what it has to do; how ingeniously connected with the brain, so as to yield that instantaneous and instinctive obedience without which its beautiful mechanism would be very little good to us! _Your_ hand, do you say? Whether it is soft and fair with an easy life, or rough and strong with a working one, or white and weak with illness, it is the Lord Jesus Christ's. It is not your own at all; it belongs to Him. He made it, for without Him was not anything made that was made, not even your hand. And He has the added right of purchase--He has bought it that it might be one of His own instruments. We know this very well, but have we realized it?

Have we really let Him have the use of these hands of ours? and have we ever simply and sincerely asked Him to keep them for His own use?

Does this mean that we are always to be doing some definitely 'religious'

work, as it is called? No, but that _all that we do_ is to be always definitely done _for Him_. There is a great difference. If the hands are indeed moving 'at the impulse of His love,' the simplest little duties and acts are transfigured into holy service to the Lord.

'A servant with this clause Makes drudgery divine; Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws, Makes that and the action fine.'

George Herbert.

A Christian school-girl loves Jesus; she wants to please Him all day long, and so she practices her scales carefully and conscientiously. It is at the impulse of His love that her fingers move so steadily through the otherwise tiresome exercises. Some day her Master will find a use for her music; but meanwhile it may be just as really done unto Him as if it were Mr. Sankey at his organ, swaying the hearts of thousands. The hand of a Christian lad traces his Latin verses, or his figures, or his copying. He is doing his best, because a banner has been given him that it may be displayed, not so much by talk as by continuance in well-doing.

And so, for Jesus' sake, his hand moves accurately and perseveringly.

A busy wife, or daughter, or servant has a number of little manual duties to perform. If these are done slowly and leisurely, they may be got through, but there will not be time left for some little service to the poor, or some little kindness to a suffering or troubled neighbour, or for a little quiet time alone with G.o.d and His word. And so the hands move quickly, impelled by the loving desire for service or communion, kept in busy motion for Jesus' sake. Or it may be that the special aim is to give no occasion of reproach to some who are watching, but so to adorn the doctrine that those may be won by the life who will not be won by the word. Then the hands will have their share to do; they will move carefully, neatly, perhaps even elegantly, making every thing around as nice as possible, letting their intelligent touch be seen in the details of the home, and even of the dress, doing or arranging all the little things decently and in order for Jesus' sake. And so on with every duty in every position.

It may seem an odd idea, but a simple glance at one's hand, with the recollection, 'This hand is not mine; it has been given to Jesus, and it must be kept for Jesus,' may sometimes turn the scale in a doubtful matter, and be a safeguard from certain temptations. With that thought fresh in your mind as you look at your hand, can you let it take up things which, to say the very least, are not 'for Jesus'? things which evidently cannot be used, as they most certainly are not used, either for Him or by Him? Cards, for instance! Can you deliberately hold in it books of a kind which you know perfectly well, by sadly repeated experience, lead you farther from instead of nearer to Him? books which must and do fill your mind with those 'other things' which, entering in, choke the word? books which you would not care to read at all, if your heart were burning within you at the coming of His feet to bless you? Next time any temptation of this sort approaches, just _look at your hand!_

It was of a literal hand that our Lord Jesus spoke when He said, 'Behold, the hand of him that betrayeth Me is with Me on the table;' and, 'He that dippeth his hand with Me in the dish, the same shall betray Me.' A hand so near to Jesus, with Him on the table, touching His own hand in the dish at that hour of sweetest, and closest, and most solemn intercourse, and yet betraying Him! That same hand taking the thirty pieces of silver!