George H. Morrison's Old And Beautiful Devotions

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November 12

The Thankful Spirit - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

Be ye thankful— Col_3:15

In the Midst of Adversity

The people to whom this was addressed were mostly people in very humble circumstances. Many of them would have been slaves. Their lot at the best was not a pleasant lot. Their privileges were as few as their enjoyments. And always in a heathen city to be a Christian aggravated everything. Yet the singular thing is that when the apostle wrote them, in such letters as this to the Colossians, he never seems to have offered them his sympathy. When death enters any of our homes, the mourners receive many kind letters. I have often wondered what fashion of a letter the apostle would have written in such circumstances. That it would have been exquisitely gracious we may take for granted from all we know of him, but unquestionably its leading theme would have been praise. The truest sympathy sometimes is not pity. The truest sympathy sometimes is encouragement. The hand that helps is the hand that points the way to new fidelity and service. And so the apostle never hesitates, even when writing to Colossian slaves, to urge them to the grace of thankfulness.

Paul's Thankful Spirit

In doing so he of course was calling them to what he himself practiced so magnificently. Perhaps there never was a more thankful heart than the heart of the Apostle Paul. Would you know, asks William Law the mystic, would you know who is the greatest saint? It is not the man who prays most or who does most. It is the man who is most thankful. And certainly, tried by such a test, you might search the annals of the Christian church and not discover a greater saint than Paul. You have but to think of him in the prison of Philippi singing praises there to God at midnight to see how he had practiced what he preached when he urged the Colossians to thankfulness.

Thankfulness Rarer than We Think

And so I should like to dwell a little upon that most important Christian duty, and I begin by saying that true thankfulness is probably harder and rarer than we think. All of us abhor ingratitude. We speak of it in the severest terms. I have heard people, Christian people, say they could forgive anything except ingratitude. And yet as life goes on, we often find that the sins which are hardest to forgive are the sins which are easiest to commit. On one occasion our Savior healed ten lepers. He healed them all and healed them equally. Yet of the ten, only one came back and showed himself a grateful man. And we might question without any cynicism whether among all of us who name the Name of Christ today, even one in ten is truly grateful. Doubtless all these ten, while cursed as lepers, had thought that it would be heaven to be healed. They had pictured it and dreamed of it, and in their dreams had Worshiped their deliverer. But among all the hours that come to us to test us and to reveal our hearts, there are few hours more penetrative than the hour in which we get all that we want. The thing we coveted was one thing. When we get it is another thing. It was so easily given. It cost so little. And, after all, did we not deserve it? Indeed, when we look around upon our fellows and see how many have got far more than we, is there any cause for gratitude at all? No doubt such thoughts were in the lepers' hearts. No doubt they were in the Colossians' hearts. And he must be strangely ignorant of his own heart who has never been conscious of that quiet revulsion. And that is why, over and over again as if calling us to what is rare and difficult, the Gospel exhorts you and me to be thankful.

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The Thankful Spirit - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

Thankfulness in Unique and Routine Circumstances

Of course, in times of special mercy, thankfulness is an instinctive feeling. There are hours when it is natural to weep and hours when it is natural to cry "Thank God." When a child is rescued from a burning house, when a man is rescued from a watery grave, when the crisis is past and the light of life comes back as in a fever or from the surgeon's knife, then in a rush of feeling from the depths pure and fervent gratitude is born. And God, who may have been long ignored, is recognized again in that glad moment as He who woundeth and yet His hands make whole. Christian friend, all such hours are good: but in any life such hours come very seldom. And it is not the rare hours that show the man: it is the common hours of common years. It takes far more than one exciting moment to tell you that anyone is really brave. And it takes far more than any tragic moment to tell you that anyone is really thankful. To be thankful in the sense of Scripture is to be thankful every ordinary day. It is to bear our routine burdens cheerfully, to meet our common sorrows without murmuring. It is so to feel the hand of God in everything, so to acknowledge the ordering of His love that for us there is nothing common or unclean. He who is rarely clean is not a clean man, and he who is rarely thankful is not a thankful man. The very joy and power of this great grace lie in the fact that it is universal. And that was what mightily impressed the world when the Christian Gospel began to spread abroad; it was the wonderful gladness of it all.

Resignation in Contrast to Thankfulness

Thankfulness, when you come to think of it, really depends upon our view of God. As is our God, so is our gratitude. If all that happens to us comes by chance, then of course no man can be grateful. Gratitude is not a duty then, for there is no one to be grateful to. Nor can gratitude ever be a duty if God be only a cold mid distant Spirit who takes no personal interest in men. Given a heaven like that, at his best two duties alone are in the power of man. The one is fortitude to face the worst, and the other is resignation in the worst. And that is why in the old pagan world the noblest gospel that was known was that of fortitude and resignation. Then came the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and resignation was swallowed up in thankfulness. And it was not because their lot was different: it was really because their God was different. They had been awakened through their Lord and Savior to a God whose name and character was Love, Love that stooped from heaven to the cross. Given such love, such individual love, life becomes a different thing at once. There is a loving purpose in its darkest hours; a loving watchfulness in all its ordering. And the moment that anyone awakes to that and with all his heart and soul believes in that, then gratitude is born. That is why Paul says in another passage, "In everything give thanks." Not in some things of quite peculiar gladness, but in everything give thanks. For in everything there is the love of God; love is ordering and arranging everything and willeth not that any man should perish.

The Thankfulness of Jesus

The spirit of universal thankfulness was very conspicuous in Jesus Christ. You do not think of Jesus as resigned: you think of Jesus as rejoicing. There are three occasions in the life of Christ when you find Him giving thanks to God. Three times over, from the depths within, His thankfulness welled over into speech. And one has only to study these thanksgivings and all that is implied in them to realize the thankfulness of Jesus. Once He gave thanks for common things when He broke the loaves upon the mountainside. Once He gave thanks for ordinary people in that God had revealed His secret unto babes. And once in the darkest hour of His life on that night on which He was betrayed, He broke forth into such glorious thanksgiving as none who heard it ever could forget. Think of it: on that night on which He was betrayed when all He had toiled for seemed to be in vain, when the cross was waiting Him and all its agony, and the spitting and the mocking and the grave. Yet on that night we find our Savior thankful and pouring out His gratitude in prayer. My brother and sister, it is that great example that lies at the back of a command like this. We are to walk even as Jesus walked. We are to be thankful as He was. Not for the glad things only but for the shadowed things, not for the great things only but for the common things, and why, just because God is love and in love is ordering all, and all things are working together for our good.

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The Thankful Spirit - Page 3
by George H. Morrison

Thankfulness—the Secret of Happiness

This grace of thankfulness diligently cultivated is one of the secrets of true happiness. It is not the happy people who are thankful. It is the thankful people who are happy. Happiness does not depend on what we have, else those who have the most would be the happiest. As a matter of fact, how often do we find that those who have the most are not the happiest? Happiness does not depend on what we have: it rather depends upon our point of view, and he who has won the thankful point of view is always on the highway of gladness. The flower that to the farmer is a weed may to the botanist be treasure trove. The rain that is so vexing to the child is just what the angler has been looking for. And so in life there are a thousand things that have an equal power to vex us or to bless us, according to our different point of view. No one who murmurs is ever really happy, and no one who worries is ever really happy. They have forgotten God and left Him out, and to leave Him out is to leave out the music. And it is only when, through Christ our Savior, we come to see His loving hand in everything that we win the thankful, grateful heart without which nobody ever can be glad. Ungrateful people are never happy people. They are always querulous and discontented. The more we are thankful for our everyday mercies, the more does life become a joyful thing. And that is why Christian life is always joyful, because everything the years may bring to us, Christ makes it possible for all who trust Him to cultivate the thankful spirit. The tiniest gift from somebody we love is of more value than many a costly offering. We take it gratefully just because love is there, and, taking it gratefully, it makes us happy. And so when we learn, as every man can learn, that God is love and that in Him we live, there is a worth in things we never saw before. The way to be glad is to be grateful, and the way to be grateful is to trust in God, to trust in Him as Jesus trusted Him on that night in which He was betrayed. Thus grows the assurance that there is no mistake, that He is watching, guiding, guarding, blessing us, which, when a man has learned, he ceases murmuring and finds that being thankful he is glad.

Thankfulness—the Source of Dedicated Service

But not only is thankfulness the spring of joy, it is also the source of dedicated service. And that is why the service of the Christian is perhaps the freest service in the world. We have all heard of the slave who after years of slavery was purchased by a stranger and set free, and how he fell at his liberator's feet and offered him all his service for the future. And we do not need to read how that new service, offered freely from a grateful heart, was richer than all the service of the past. Once he had toiled because he had to toil, and now he toiled because he loved to toil. Once he had done his work in daily fear, and now he did it all in daily gratitude. And that swift change of motive in his heart, from the haunting terror of the lash to love, made all the difference in what he did. It made all the difference to him, and it makes all the difference to us. Service is changed down to its very depths when we realize that we have been redeemed. And when we realize that we have been redeemed, not with gold but with the blood of Christ, what can we say each morning that we awaken but "Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift." My brother and sister, be ye thankful. It may be a secret you have never learned. Think of all you owe to God in Christ, you who are less than the least of all His saints. So shall there come new peace into your life, a happiness to which you are a stranger, a passion to do a little ere the night fall for Him who loved you and gave Himself for you.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
e-Sword by Rick Meyer: http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html
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(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
Software to every country on earth in their own language FREE
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November 13

In the Name - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

And whatever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him— Col_3:17

Men of Old Put Great Faith in Names

To the original readers of this letter this text would have a deep significance, and it would have that because to them there was so much that was mysterious in a name. With us there is little meaning in a name. It is a handy badge of recognition. What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. But with the eastern it was very different. It was no chance that called a rose a rose. There was a deep, a mystical connection between the name and the thing signified. That applied to every name, but was particularly true of names of persons. It was no accident that of two disciples, the one should be called John, the other Peter. Men felt that the hand of God was in the matter moving those concerned to make the choice and in that choice embodying or foreshadowing the glory or the weakness of the character. No name was arbitrary to an oriental. No name was ever given haphazardly. As the years passed and character was formed, it was discovered that the name was prophecy. Something happened which confirmed the choice and showed the infinite wisdom which had guided it and deepened within the hearts of men the reverence for the mystery of names.

The Authority and Life behind the Name

Now it is in the light of that that we must read and understand our text. Whatsoever ye do, says Paul, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. That does not mean that ere we begin to work, we should invoke the name of the Lord Jesus. Many of us, I trust, do that, but that is not what Paul is teaching here. True is it, true beyond all words, that everything is sanctified by prayer, yet that is not the doctrine of our text. When an ambassador at some foreign court utters his message in the name of Britain, that means that behind his message is the authority and power of Britain. He is not speaking as a private person. He is not himself the source of what he says. He is the channel for the will of Britain, and all the power of the empire is behind him. That is the apostle's meaning when he bids us labor in the name of Jesus. He wants us to realize that behind us is the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. He wants us to feel in everything we do, however great it be or however small, that we are but channels for the will of heaven. It is one character of the God of love that He is ever striving to express Himself. In Him is life, and life is never satisfied saving in outflow and in utterance. And so I take it that in every sunset and in every bird that sings upon the tree, you have a partial utterance of God. They cannot tell that they are voicing Him. They do not know the life that is behind them. But you and I, fashioned in His image, have been endowed with faculty to know it. And I would to God I could impress upon you what an enormous difference it makes just to realize that it is so. To feel that I am a channel, not a fountain, to feel that God needs me to express Himself, to feel that through my toil, however lowly, the will of heaven is working to its goal, it is that which ennobles life, sheds a sanctity on all its drudgery, helps it even in its dreariest, to be in heavenly places with Christ Jesus.

A Source or a Channel?

And that I take it is the most important question with which we are ever faced about our work. I feel it more deeply every year I live. Many are busy working with the brain, and many are busy working with the hand. And some are teachers, others doctors or lawyers, and some spend their days in the market. And some are occupied in lowly work and others in the control of vast concerns. Here is a woman whose appointed sphere is in the home among her growing children. There is a man whose business interests extend through half the countries of the world. Well now, the question I want to ask is this—in what light do you regard your work? Under what aspect do you think of it? On the answer to that question far more depends than you might ever dream of and there are only two answers which are possible. The one is that you yourself are the source and origin of all you do. It is your brain that has achieved success. It is your hand that has procured your welfare. The other is that you are not a source, but only the channel of a greater power which from an infinite fountain in the heavens is flowing out through you upon the world. Give the one answer, and you stand alone. You are fighting for your own hand in loneliness. But give the other and believe the other, and behind that toil of yours is God. It is He who is working through that brain of yours. It is He who is toiling through that hand of yours. It is He who is moving out into that expression through every honest task you ever tried. That is the spirit of our text. Do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus. Just stop a moment and try to realize that you are the instrument of God in Christ. There is not a thing you do then whether in shop or home or office, but will begin to flash with a new meaning and seem as if it were worthier to be done.

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In the Name - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

Being a Channel Does Not Lead to Inactivity

Now there is one objection to this view of service which may be and often has been urged. It is that if we are but channels, then our activity is likely to suffer. If it is Jesus who is working through us, would it not be best to be still and let Him work? If through us the will of God is moving, is it not our duty to be passive? So men have speculated upon this and thought that human activities would slacken if once it were brought home to men and women that they were but channels of the will of Christ.

Well now, there is a passage in the Acts that may help to throw some light on that. It is the memorable passage of the healing of the lame man at the gate Beautiful. Peter and John were going up to pray, and doubtless they were thinking about Christ. And then the cripple cried to them for money, and somehow it brought Jesus very near them. For they remembered how He used to look and how a great compassion would possess Him when such a cry came ringing in His ear. It was then that Peter felt through his own soul the moving of the power of Jesus Christ. And he cried out with a loud voice, "In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise and walk." And the point to note is that just then when Peter was most a channel for his Lord, so far from being listless or inactive, he was intensely and tremendously alive. It was not his power. It was that of Jesus. It was not he who was working, it was Christ. Yet look at his eyes burning upon the cripple. Look at his hands outstretched to lift him up. The whole impression is of a man alive, quick to the finest fiber of his being, and quick simply because he knew that he was working in the name of Jesus.

As it was with Peter, so is it with everyone who makes this great discovery. When once we feel that God is using us, then every activity is quickened. Is the branch less active in the vine because it is abiding in the vine? Does it begin to say, I need not toil because my life is flowing from the stock? Why, brethren, it is that very fact, that inflow from a source beyond itself, that stirs it into life abundant. Let it be separated from the parent stern and every leaf upon the branch will wither and every tendril will lose its power to twine and every grape will dry and die. But let it live in union with that stock, drawing upon a power beyond itself, and every part of it is energized. Every leaf of the branch is busy now, a little kingdom of organized activities. Every grape, like the old temple, is being built without the sound of tools. And all this, mark you, this unwearied toil as if a thousand unseen hands were occupied, begins and has its being in the fact that the branch is not a fountain but a channel. So is it, I say, with every man when he first thrills to think that God is using him. It does not weaken him. It strengthens him. It makes him not less industrious, but more. Everything that we do is better done, more purely, more intensely, and more patiently, when it is done in the name of the Lord Jesus.

Working in Christ's Name Results in Calmness of Heart

Now, when we grasp that thought and apply it to our duties, two results are almost always found. Of these two the first is this, a certain calmness and peace of the heart.

Readers of the Gospel story have often noted the perfect peace of Christ. It breathes upon us as a breath from heaven in every page of the evangelists. Never was a life so full as Christ's. Never was one so busy or so broken. Well He knew what overpressure meant and all the vexatiousness of interruption. And yet the calmest sea of summer evening when not a ripple is playing on its surface does not convey to us such peace unutterable as does the life of the Lord Jesus. Now, if you want the secret of that peace, I think you have to turn to John to find it. It is in that Gospel that you see most clearly how Jesus looked upon His work. And the great fact that shines upon these pages is just the fact that Jesus was a channel, a channel deep beyond all human fathoming, for the conveyance of the Father's will. No words of mine could exaggerate that thought. It is written large throughout the whole Gospel. Moment by moment, Jesus Christ is doing that which His Father has given Him to do. And the great peace that clothed Him like a garment and kept Him tranquil under intense pressure was just His certainty that this was so. A11 might forsake Him, but He was not alone. All might gainsay Him, but it mattered not. Christ was no fatalist who buoyed Himself with the dark sophism of the inevitable. He walked abroad in perfect filial freedom, grasping constantly His Father's hand, and He was always tranquil in His work because His work was given Him by God.

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In the Name - Page 3
by George H. Morrison

Now, brethren, as it was with Christ, so in a measure is it with us all. To feel that God in Christ is working through us is one of the surest secrets of tranquility. Men have often noted the great calm that is one of the most common virtues of the fatalist. He will face death after the manner of heroes; he will suffer in quietness where we would cry aloud; he will display the magnificence of patience just because his heaven is dark with fate. Now no man who believes in Christ can ever seek the refuge of the fatalist. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. He is the Son, and He hath made us free. But what I say is that that quiet heart, touched with a happiness he never knew, is yours and mine more than the fatalist's when once we grasp the doctrine of our text. Think of yourself as the one worker, and ah, how soon the burden overwhelms you. How quickly do things get in disarray, how often are you on the margin of despondency. But think of yourself as God would have you think, as but the channel for the will divine, and into every day there will come peace. You cannot be spoiled by your successes now, for it is not you who are triumphing but God. You cannot be shattered by your failures now, for God has His own purposes in failure. Through you the will of heaven is being done. Through you the infinite is finding utterance. Once let a man or woman wake to that and peace shall flow upon him like a river.

Working in Christ's Name Kills the Bitterness of Competition

It is thus, too, let me say in passing, that the bitterness of competition dies away. I have more faith in this text for that than in all the propaganda of the socialist. Here for example are two ministers whose churches are not far from one another. Or here again there are two Sunday school classes whose teachers' are from the same church. Well now, if these ministers or teachers think of all they are doing as their own, I say there is almost certain to be bitterness. All success that may attend the one will stir a pang of envy in the other. There may be all the semblances of brotherhood, but never the true brotherhood of hearts. There is but one way to make sure of that—to make us comrades while we are still competitors—and that is to feel that at the back of all both bear the name of Jesus Christ. Then shall we strive our hardest for our own, but never shall we begrudge another's striving. The very power that is using him is flowing to its accomplishment in us. So are we summoned from our isolation and called in service to the truest unity, a unity that is a living thing because of the diversity it holds. I have spoken of ministers and Sunday school teachers, but remember these are only examples. Lawyers and doctors, artists, men of trade, remember that the same applies to you. I want you to feel today about your rival of whom so often you have had bitter thoughts that God is moving to express Himself through him as surely as through you. That will not make him any less your rival. God has no purpose to abolish rivalry. When He does that, the rose will cease to charm and the iris to change upon the burnished dove. But now from the breast of rivalry has vanished that gnawing bitterness which made it hell. We are the thousand channels of the one, and of every channel He has need.

Working in Christ's Name Gives Dignity to Human Labor

There are times, I take it, in all callings, when men feel bitterly the sense of pettiness. To some it becomes almost intolerable that they should be living such a petty existence. They know the stirring of a larger life; they hear the whispering of undeveloped powers; they feel that they were meant for greater things and could achieve them if the way were open. Yet every morning they must return to duty, to undistinguished and often sordid duty, and it is very far from easy in that duty to keep alive the nobility of work. We, the ministers of Jesus Christ, through your liberality are set apart. You have said to us, You go apart, my brother, and traffic with heaven while we are in the market. Then come to us upon the Lord's day and give us some of the riches of your argosy, for we are soiled in battling with the world. Would you not think, sir, that a toil like that would be illumined with a constant dignity? Alas, how far is that from being the truth. How much have we to do that seems unworthy. And what I say is that if even on us there steals too often the sense of degradation, how much more constantly must it intrude on you. You feel that you were meant for better things. Sometimes that buying and selling grows contemptible. You feel as Grotius felt, who on his deathbed said, "I have spent my life laboriously doing nothing." What is the use of it all—this daily routine, this buying and selling for a little money, this drudgery that we lay down tonight only to resume tomorrow morning?

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In the Name - Page 4
by George H. Morrison

The Gospel understands that as it understands our complex nature. And the relief it offers against that is found in the thought of our great text. True to the heavenly wisdom which inspires it, it never loses its feeling of proportion. It does not mock you by assuring you that every service is of equal glory. But it relieves you from the sense of pettiness, inevitably, perfectly, immediately, the moment you deeply feel that what you do is done in the name of the Lord Jesus. The smallest token is a lovely thing when there is a heart that loves behind it. A single word may be a cheering thing when behind it is a heart of trust. So when behind our labor there is Christ, when we are the instruments of Christ, then the sorriest drudgery of earth begins to wear a crown upon its head. Once you feel that everything you do is God seeking to express Himself, once realize that you are but a conduit for the out flowing of the will divine, and as the dustiest hedge will flash and sparkle under the glistening dew of the May morning, so will the lowliest labor be ennobled. It is not you who are working now. It is Jesus who is working through you. It is His will that is being done on earth in every labor that you set your hand to. And this, remember, is as true when you are cleaning dishes or selling at a counter as when you are teaching in the Sunday school or preaching the riches of His grace.

God Fulfills Himself in Many Ways

For we must never forget, to put it in the language of the poet, that God fulfills Himself in many ways. Those of us who have sailed upon the Rhine know what a mighty stream it is as it flows proudly through the heart of Europe. It sweeps along in its channel, powerful in its silence and its swiftness. And many a vineyard ripens on it shores and many a castle looks down upon its waters. But when it comes at last into that region which is to join its waters to the sea, there the single channel becomes fifty. And some of them are great and noble streams, and some of them are tiny rivulets. And some of them wash the walls of busy cities, and some go wandering in lonely places. Yet every channel, be it great or little, be it the haunt of commerce or of dream, is carrying the one river to the sea. Say not that the tiny rivulet is different from the flood where steamers ply. Both are flowing because behind them both is the one mighty volume of the Rhine. And so behind your life and mine, however different these lives may be, is the one river of the will of God. It is His will that is finding its fulfillment wherever a mother is working in her home. It is His will that is finding its fulfillment in the honest labor of the shop and office. And the great secret that redeems our toil and robs it of its depressing pettiness is just to realize that that is so.

One of the few men of genius I have known was Professor Lord Kelvin. Well, I shall tell you one thing that always impressed me about Lord Kelvin; it was the number of people he kept busy. Some were busy working out his problems, some in superintending his experiments, many in making his innovative machines, and others I suppose in cleaning them. But what impressed me was how many men, from the apprentice to the finest engineer, were all required to carry out completely the workings of that single brain. Now, brethren, uplift your thoughts from men and fix them upon the genius of God. Think of the infinite life there is in God; think of the infinite thought which that implies. Then tell me how many thousand workers will be required upon this earth of ours if in its height and depth that will of God is to be carried out into expression. I want you to feel that there is room for you. I want you to feel that there is need of you. I want you to feel that through your lowly task, the Infinite is pressing to its utterance. And I say this, that when that breaks upon you with all the thrill of a new discovery, the sorriest drudgery a man is chained to ceases to be sorry from that hour.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
e-Sword by Rick Meyer: http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html
Full Featured - Outstanding - Completely FREE - No Strings Attached

(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
Software to every country on earth in their own language FREE
of charge, and that goal gets closer by the day.)
____________________

[nChrist]

November 14

To the Half-Hearted - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord— Col_3:23

A Command to Slaves

I want you to note how our text is introduced; it has a very. suggestive and illuminative context. "Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh," that is verse twenty-two; and then, "Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord," that is verse twenty-three. Now the servants of whom Paul speaks in verse twenty-two are not domestic servants in our sense. They were slaves, bought for a little money; the property and the chattels of their master. Yet even to slaves who got no wages and who had no rights, clear and imperious comes the command of God, "Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily."

Now I think that is very suggestive for today. I can hardly talk to a master-painter or a master-baker, but I hear complaints about the degeneracy of labor. Men are not faithful, they have to be watched like children; the loyal service of an older day is dead. So say the masters; and on the other hand the men say that had they a more direct interest in their work and a more immediate concern in its prosperity, they would throw themselves into it with doubled zeal. Now all that may be true. But the point is that if the Bible holds and if this text be really the Word of God, nothing on earth, not even the worst relationships of capital and labor, can ever excuse half-hearted work. Your hours are long?—so were those of the Colossian slaves. Your pay is poor?—the Colossian slave had none. Your mistress is tyrannical and mean?—but the Colossian mistress lashed her servants. Yet whatsoever ye do, ye slaves, cries Paul, do it all heartily as to the Lord.

Paul Practiced What He Preached

I want you to note, too, that this text was never better illustrated than in the life of the man who was inspired to pen it. There was an enthusiasm and a concentration about Paul which have won the admiration of men of all time. "One thing I do, forgetting the things that are behind, I press towards the mark," says the apostle; and whatsoever he did, he did it heartily as unto the Lord who loved him so. It is so easy to preach and never intend to practice. It is so hard to practice first and then to preach. It gives a wonderful power to our text and charges its mandate with redoubled urgency when we remember who the writer was. Men have brought many charges against Paul, but I do not think his bitterest enemy has ever charged him with half-heartedness. There is a glow and fervor in the man that marks in an instant the divine enthusiast. Others might waver, Paul battled to his goal. Others might yield, Paul was invincible. And had you seen him working at his tent making in the late night when the city was asleep, you would have found him plying the tent maker's needle and singing, I doubt not, as in the prison at Philippi, with the very heartiness and zeal that filled his preaching of Christ crucified.

Faithful Work Is Enthusiastic but Not Necessarily Noisy

It is then of this whole-heartedness, of this fine concentration or enthusiasm, that I want to speak. And I should like to say by way of caution, that true enthusiasm is not a noisy thing. Whenever we think of an enthusiastic crowd, we think of uproar, tumult, wild excitement. And I grant you that in the life of congregated thousands, touched into unity by some great emotion, there seems to be some call for loud expression. But just as there is a sorrow that lies too deep for tears, there is an enthusiasm far too deep for words; and the intense purpose of the whole-hearted man is never noisy. When the children of Israel, defeated by the Philistines, sent for the ark of God into the camp, do you remember how, when the ark appeared they shouted till the earth rang and rent? Yet in spite of the effervescence of emotion, they were defeated and the ark of God was captured. But Jesus, in the enthusiasm of His kingly heart, set His face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem; and yet He would not strive nor cry nor lift up His voice in the streets. The noisiest are generally shallow. There is a certain silence, as of an under current, wherever a man is working heartily.

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[nChrist]

To the Half-Hearted - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

Prune thou thy words, thy thoughts control

That o'er thee swell and throng;

They shall condense within thy soul

And change to purpose strong.

Whole-Hearted Personal Involvement Is a Condition to Success

Whole-heartedness, then, is never a noisy virtue; and I have thought it right to dwell on that that we may be on our guard against its counterfeits. But if it is not noisy, this at least is true of it: it is the basic condition of the best success. The chairman of the Congregational Union of Scotland, in an address he delivered some time ago at Glasgow, told us that a friend had met him lately and said to him, "I suppose you have heard that Mr. So-and-so has failed?" The chairman had not heard it. "Well he has," said his friend, "and little wonder, for he starved his business. He did not even put himself into it." He did not put himself into the work; he did not do it heartily as to the Lord. And could we trace the history of failure—that long, sad story of the world—I think we should find that for everyone who went to the wall through want of intellect, there were a score who reached that pass through want of heart. To concentrate as all the apostles did, to have the resolute enthusiasm of Jesus, that spirit has something congenial to success in it; and I use success in its best and noblest senses, some of which the world might call defeat.

Whole-Heartedness Is a Condition to True Happiness

But the virtue of whole-heartedness is more than that. It is one of the conditions of the truest happiness. There comes a certain joy as of the morning, a certain zest and buoyancy of spirit, when whatsoever we do is done heartily as to the Lord. When we are half-hearted, the hours have leaden feet. We become fretful, easily provoked; the very grasshopper becomes a burden. But when, subduing feeling, we turn with our whole energy of soul to grapple with our duty or with our cross, it is wonderful how under the long shadows we hear unexpectedly a sound of music. To be half-hearted is to be half-happy. It is to live in a lack-luster kind of way. And so it is to live in an unChristlike way, it is to know little of the joy of Jesus. Do you not think the joy of Jesus Christ was linked, far down, with His whole-hearted service? He never could have spoken of His joy but for His unswerving fidelity to God. And when at last upon the cross there rang out the loud, glad cry, "It is finished," there was joy in it because the stupendous work of saving men had been carried through to its triumph and its crown.

Whole-Heartedness Involves a Feeling of Doing As unto God

And there can be little question that the more heartily we do our humble duty, the more we feel we are doing it for God. It is one of the secrets for bringing heaven near us, for feeling the Infinite with us and within us, to be whole-hearted in the present task. Thinkers have often noted this strange fact: great enthusiasms tend to become religious. Let a man be mastered by any great idea and sooner or later he will find the shadow of God on it. But that is true not of great enthusiasms alone; it holds of whole-heartedness in every sphere. When Luther said, "Laborare est orare"—to labor is to pray—you may be sure that that great soul did not mean that work could ever take the place of prayer. He knew too well the value of devotion and the blessed uplifting of the quiet hour with God ever to think that toil could take its place. But just as in earnest prayer the heavens are opened to us and we are led into the presence and glory of the King, so in our earnest and whole-hearted toil, clouds scatter, the mists of feelings and passions are dispelled, and we are led into a peace and strength and sweet detachment without which no man shall see the Lord. It is in that sense that to labor is to pray. To be whole-hearted is to be facing heavenward. And the great loss of all half-hearted men and women is this, that above the dust and the stress and strain of life, above the fret and weariness of things, they catch no glimpse of the eternal purpose, nor of the love, nor of the joy of God.

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[nChrist]

To the Half-Hearted - Page 3
by George H. Morrison

The Whole-Hearted Worker Is in Harmony with God

Indeed, if that old saying "like to like" be true, the men who are half-hearted must be blind. For if there is one demonstrable fact I think it is this: we are the creatures of a whole-hearted God. When I remember the thoroughness of the Creator's workmanship; when I think of the consummate genius and care that He has lavished on the tiniest weed; when I recall the age-long discipline that was preparing the world for Jesus Christ; I feel that the heart of God is in His work. And I feel, too, that if my heart is not in mine, I must be out of touch with the Creator. The gods of savages are generally lazy because the savages themselves are lazy, and they have spiritual sense enough to know that there cannot be communion without kinship. But our God is the infinite Creator; the master-builder, the thorough and perfect workman. And I don't know how a half-hearted servant can have any kinship with a whole-hearted Lord. O brother, whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, that you may come into line with the eternal. It is the pity of all half-hearted men that they are out of harmony with God.

Whole-Heartedness in Attachment to a Person

One other word on our text and I am finished. I want you to note how the writer lays his hand on the real secret of all great enthusiasm. He centers his appeal upon a person. Had Paul been writing in some quiet academy, the text, I dare say, might have read like this, "Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, for that is the road to nobility of character"; or "Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, for that is the secret of success." But Paul did not write in any quiet academy. Paul wrote for the masses. Paul wrote for the whole world. And he knew that nothing abstract, nothing cold, would ever inspire the enthusiasm of thousands. A cause must be concentrated in some powerful name; it must live in the flesh and blood of personality if the hearts of the multitudes are ever to be stirred and the lives of the many are ever to be won. So Paul, with the true instinct of universal genius, gathered all abstract arguments for zeal into the living argument of Jesus. And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as what? as to the Lord.

And so by the roundabout road of this address, you see I have brought you back to the feet of Christ, and wherever we may start from, I trust always to leave you there. I believe that the secret of all worthwhile living lies in the company of Jesus Christ. And for making us earnest, thorough, quietly resolute, no matter what fickleness or cowardice we start with, there is really nothing like fellowship with Him. Do you want to be truer? Get a little closer. Are you ashamed of your half-heartedness? Get nearer. Then back to your work again, alone yet not alone: for the time flies and eternity is near, and you shall pass this way but once.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
e-Sword by Rick Meyer: http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html
Full Featured - Outstanding - Completely FREE - No Strings Attached

(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
Software to every country on earth in their own language FREE
of charge, and that goal gets closer by the day.)
____________________

[nChrist]

November 15

Folk Who Are a Comfort to Us

These...have been a comfort unto me— Col_4:11

Others Can Be Our Paregoric

The word comfort in our text is a very interesting word. This is the only place where it occurs in the books of the New Testament. It is quite another word the Lord uses when He speaks of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter. When He says, "I will not leave you comfortless," that, too, is an entirely different word. The term which is used here, and here alone in the whole range of the New Testament, is our English word paregoric. Now paregoric, in Greek just as in English, is one of accepted terms of medicine. Paregoric is a doctor's word. And one likes to think that the Apostle Paul in his employment of such a word as this betrays, it may be quite unconsciously, the influence of the beloved physician Luke. I suppose that every real friendship has an influence upon the words we use. When we admire anybody very much, we often find their words upon our lips. And Paul, who like so many other people had an intense admiration for his doctor, would naturally use the words of Luke.

Paregoric Mitigates Pain

And certainly he could not have used a more appropriate or delightful word. Are you aware what paregoric means? I consulted my English dictionary to see how paregoric was defined, and I found that paregoric was a medicine that mitigates or alleviates pain. And what could be more delightful than the thought that there are men and women who are just like that—they mitigate or alleviate our pain. Pain is one of the conditions of our being. Pain is something nobody escapes. All life is rich in pain, as the throat of the bird in the spring is rich in song—the pain of striving, the pain of being baffled, the pain of loneliness and incompleteness, the pain of being misunderstood. There are people who augment that pain, sometimes without meaning it. How often is the pain of life increased by those unfortunate people who mean well. But who has not numbered in his list of friends somebody whose Christlike ministry has been to alleviate the pain of life? Such were the apostle's paregoric. Such are the paregoric of us all; often humble people, not in the least distinguished and not at all conspicuous for intellect; yet somehow, in the wear and tear of life and amid its crosses and its sorrows, mitigating and alleviating pain.

Paregoric in Our Family and Friendly Circles

Often those who alleviate life's pain, who are paregoric in the apostle's sense, are the members of our family circle, the dear ones who dwell with us at home. There was a time in Principal Rainy's life when he was the most hated man in Scotland. Scarcely a week passed in which the newspapers had not some venomous attack upon him. And all the time, neither in face nor temper did Rainy show one trace of irritation, but carried himself with a beautiful serenity. One day Dr. Whyte met him and said, "Rainy, I cannot understand you. How do you manage to keep serene like this, exposed to all these venomous attacks?" And Rainy answered without an instant's pause: "Whyte, I'm very happy at home." The wounds were deep, but there were hands at home that were always pouring balm into the wounds; gentle, kindly ministries at home that mitigated and alleviated pain. And how many there are in every rank of life who find their courage to endure in secret sweet comforting like that. In the perfect trust of little children, in their innocence and blessed ignorance, in the love of someone who is dear, who understands yet is always bright and hopeful, how many men have plucked up heart again, found the bitter pain of life alleviated, been strengthened for their battle with the world.

Again, think of the comfort that we get from any friend who really understands us. Such appreciative and understanding souls—are these not the apostle's paregoric? Our Lord knew that. Never was man misunderstood as He. Misunderstood when He spoke or would not speak—misunderstood in every deed He wrought—misunderstood upon the cross. Think of the exquisite pain of it for that sensitive and sinless heart—fresh from the understanding of high heaven, that constant misunderstanding of mankind. And then there came an hour when Simon Peter inspired by the Holy Ghost cried, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." It thrilled our blessed Master to the depths. Life was different. He was understood. How instantly did it alleviate and mitigate the bitter pain He had to bear. And whenever in this difficult life of ours God sends us somebody who understands, is it not always paregoric to the soul? To have somebody whom we can trust—who, we are sure, will never misinterpret—who never judges us except in love—who appreciates and understands—what earthly comfort in all the range of comfort can for one moment be compared with that?

Comforting Others Without Realizing It

There is one thing more I want to say and that, too, was in the apostle's mind. Remember you can be a comfort to another though you never know anything about it. Just as the finest influence we exercise is often that of which we are unconscious, so the greatest comfort that we bring is often the comfort we know nothing of—not our preaching nor our words of cheer, but the way in which we bear ourselves in life when the burden is heavy and the sky is black. "No man liveth to himself." Let men or women behave gallantly and behave so because they trust in God when life is difficult, when things go wrong, when health is falling, when the grave is opened; and though they may never hear a whisper of it, there are others who are thanking God for them. Every sorrow borne in simple faith is helping other men to bear their sorrows. Every burden victoriously carried is helping men and women to be braver. Every cross, anxiety, foreboding, shining with the serenity of trust, comes like light to those who sit in darkness. People say sometimes, "I would give anything to comfort so and so." Dear friend, if you walk in light and love, you are a comfort when you never know it. And other people, writing their epistle (though it will never be equal to Colossians), will put your name in to your intense surprise and say,"You were a comfort unto me."

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
e-Sword by Rick Meyer: http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html
Full Featured - Outstanding - Completely FREE - No Strings Attached

(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
Software to every country on earth in their own language FREE
of charge, and that goal gets closer by the day.)
____________________

[nChrist]

November 16

The Ambition of Quietness - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

We beseech you…that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business— 1Th_4:1-11

Dangers of Great News of the Past and the Future

The church at Thessalonica to which Paul wrote the letter was in an unsettled and distracted state. The Gospel had come to it in such reality that it was tempted to be untrue to duty. We have all known how a city is excited when tidings are brought to it of some great victory. The streets are thronged; the schoolboys get a holiday; men find it hard to persist in the day's duty. It was with somewhat of the same intensity of impress, with its consequent unsettlement and stir, that the news of the risen Christ came to this city. Bosomed in that news, too, was the assurance that the Christ who had risen was soon to come again. However Paul's views may have changed in later years, when he wrote this letter that was his firm belief. And you may be sure that what Paul believed he taught so that (as you may see on every page here) the Thessalonians were filled with a great joy that in a little while Christ would come again. It was that which made them so troubled when one died, for they feared he had missed the glory of Christ's coming. It was that which made it very hard to labor, for who could tell but that Christ might come that day. And as with most excitement there is a certain restlessness and an unloosing of the tongue in noisy speech, so among the Christians of this early church there would doubtless be some lack of self-restraint. It was to combat that almost inevitable state of mind that Paul gave the counsels of our verse. He was not speaking to philosophic students. He was speaking to handicraftsmen, many of them weavers. And he said, "Make it your ambition to be quiet, and to do your own work as we commanded you, that you may walk honorably towards them who are without."

Quietness Is Needed for True Work

Now the truth which unites the clauses of our text is that quietness is needed for true work. Study to be quiet and to do your business; you will never do the one without the other. In a measure that is true of outward quiet, at least when we reach the higher kinds of labor. The thinker, the student, the poet, cannot work when they are tortured by perpetual din. Every man who is earnest about the highest work makes it his ambition to be quiet. Is he an artist? he seeks a quiet studio. Is he a thinker? he seeks a quiet study. The best of the Waverley novels were all written in the dewy stillness of the early morning before the locust-bands that swarmed to Abbotsford put quietness out of the question for Sir Walter. Of course there is a certain type of man that is largely impervious to outward tumult. Mr. Gladstone could read and write in Downing Street in total oblivion of the marching of the Horse Guards. But that does not mean that he did not require quietude; it means that he could command an inward quietude and that he was master of such concentration as most of us have only in rare moments. It is the duty of every man who does the higher work to make it his ambition to be quiet. If he is called to his task by the clear will of God, he must strive for the right conditions for his task. And to me it is wonderful how in this age of din when the uproar of life is so all-penetrating—how work that is fine and delicate and beautiful manages to get itself fulfilled at all.

Inward Peace Shows Outwardly

But the words of our text have a far deeper meaning than can ever be exhausted by quietness of circumstances. They tell us that the best work is never possible unless there be a quietness of the heart. When a man is inwardly racked and torn and restless, you can very often tell it on his face. But if it only told on his face it would be little; the pity is that it tells upon his work. No matter how humble a man's task may be, no matter how ordinary and uninteresting, he cannot set himself to do it faithfully without imprinting his very being on it; and if within the man there is no peace but a surging of turmoil or unrest, that inward tumult will tell on all his toil and subtly influence everything he does. It is one of the legends of our Savior's childhood that in Joseph's workshop He was a perfect worker. If He made a plough, it was a faultless plough. If He made a toy, there was not a flaw in it. It is only a legend, and yet like every legend, it leans for its secret of beauty on a truth, and the truth is that here was perfect peace, and perfect peace produced the perfect work. Study to be quiet and to do thy business. Make it thine ambition to have a heart at peace. Without that there is no perfecting of fellowship, and without it no perfecting of toil.

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[nChrist]

The Ambition of Quietness - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

The Disquiet of Despondency

Think for example of the disquiet of despondency; does not that tangle all that we put our hand to? Let a man be plunged into profound despondency and every blow of his hammer is affected. There comes to all of us, in spite of resolve and prayer, hours when the zest and charm of things depart; hours when there is no edge on any feeling and when all the expanse is desolate and parched; hours when a man is unutterably wretched and when a woman will weep for one kind word. It may be that there is sin deep down in that, or it may be that the frame is overtaxed; or that melancholy mood may come, we know not how, in the very season when we looked for gladness; but coming with its profound unsettlement, it steals the joy from everything we do and spreads itself like some benumbing poison through the living tissue of our work. The slightest task weighs heavily upon us and difficulties are magnified a thousandfold; things that yesterday we could have faced with ease seem to be insurmountable today; but it is not things which have changed, it is ourselves; we are grown nervous in a deep disquiet. We cannot throw ourselves upon our task with joy, for we have lost our peace of heart.

Passions Produce Unrest

The same is true of the unrest of the passions; work becomes drudgery in their disquiet. Let a man be secretly tossed by any passion and how irksome grows the routine of ordinary days ! It is hard to bend the head over one's books when the voices of the sweet world begin to call. It is hard to serve in warehouse or shop when the heart is torn and tortured with anxiety. It is hard to take up the tasks of life again and to be courteous and whole-hearted and unselfish when the waves of a recent and overwhelming sorrow are breaking and beating still upon the shore. Luther used to say about his preaching that he never could preach except when he was angry. Perhaps there are some of us who would be better preachers were we a little more angry now and then. But the anger that kindles a man's powers is rare, and the anger that degrades or darkens them is common. The angry man is generally wrong, and when a man is wrong his work is never right. The best school work is never done in the tumultuous days before vacation. The best work of a clerk is never done in the whirling season when he is in love. Why, when a domestic servant grows forgetful and handles things in an absent-minded way, does her kind mistress smile and say, "Mary must be in love"? I protest against exciting books and plays. I protest against exciting games and dances. And I protest against them because their net result is to make life not easier but harder. For nine-tenths of an honest life is toil, and toil demands a certain noble quietude, a settlement of spirit which is hard to keep and perilously easy to destroy. It is no chance that this exciting age should be an age of much disgraceful workmanship. I hear on every hand today bitter complaints of the rarity of true and faithful service. And I say no wonder when the ambition of the day is at every cost to be excited. The day of faithful work will come again, but only when men study to be quiet.

An Uneasy Conscience Cannot Produce Good Work

Again, the need of inward quiet for toil is seen in the working of an uneasy conscience. Are we not tempted to think of a guilty conscience as something a little apart from daily life; something which has to do with a great God and is therefore remote from the business of the hour? I want you to learn there is not a thing you do, not a task or duty you can set your hand to, which is not adversely and evilly affected, if at the back of all there is an unquiet conscience. You may be a student working at your classes or a servant busied in the sunless kitchen; you may have to control a mighty business or in that business you may be the humblest clerk; but whatever your work is, a conscience void of peace will tell upon and influence that work and interpenetrate it all so surely that to its finest fiber it will feel your guilt. We smile a little today at the great text, "Be sure your sin will find you out." We have grown so liberal and so enlightened that we can jest at twilight superstitions. But if one thing is certain, it is that that text is true and that every sin we have cherished finds us out, and finds us out not by the trump of God, but by the resistless evolving of its consequence. Some find us out long after in our bodies. Some find us in the bosom of our pleasant homes. Some lie asleep till we are near our victory, and then they waken and snatch away the laurel. But always, in the temper of our work, in the tone and strength of it and in its joy and quality, there is more than the impact of our brain and hand, there is also the impact of our conscience. Conscience makes cowards of us all, and if a man is a coward his work is sure to show it. There must be peace within, and the joy that comes from peace, if the smallest task is to be well done. And that is why the Gospel of Christ Jesus which through the precious blood brings peace of conscience, has given the world a new ideal of work and enriched the humblest worker with new joy. Study to be quiet, then, and do your business. Make it your ambition to have the rest of Christ. A heart tumultuous and burning and restless is a sorry comrade for the leaden days. But a heart at peace, and passions in subjection, and a conscience void of offence towards God and man, will send a man whole-heartedly to duty and help to make that duty a delight.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
e-Sword by Rick Meyer: http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html
Full Featured - Outstanding - Completely FREE - No Strings Attached

(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
Software to every country on earth in their own language FREE
of charge, and that goal gets closer by the day.)
____________________

[doc]

As paregoric is an opium derivative, BEP, I thought of old Carl's statement:  "Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes".

We've all heard it and I always thought I understood it until I read Marx's' full quote in wikipedia.  (search : opiate of the people)

Marx was really screwed up and this stupid statement proves it.  Never have I seen such a foolish bunch of missunderstanding in my life.

It might be interesting to find out more on this subject.

Ain't Morrison Great?

[nChrist]

Hello Doc,

Yes, Brother, George Morrison is an excellent writer with a style that I really enjoy. I'm finding that I really like quite a few of the older writers. There isn't much of a language barrier with some of them, but you can tell with many that word usage was different a hundred years ago, and some of the younger folks have never heard some of the terms that are used. George Morrison's writing made it very obvious that he loved and respected the LORD, and his writing has a pleasant, poetic kind of quality to it.

Reference Marx, I've really never spent any time in looking at his writing, even when I was younger. I understand the theories, but you're right - it doesn't make much sense.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Romans 12:1-2 NASB  Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.