Words about Work

Amonc the multitude of our thoughts within us, at the solemn passing from the year for ever closed into the veiled and trackless paths of the New Year, our work, past and future, is, most likely, very prominent. Perhaps the very first thing all the true workers will be telling the patient Master, about their work, is what one of the most Christ-like workers I ever heard of said to me the other day: “It all wants forgiving.” For conscience responds to the truth of His declaration, ‘‘ Neither shall they cover themselves with their own works.” One flash of the Spirit’s light is enough to show us how true that is, and how really and truly we have been unprofitable servants. Yes, forgiveness for all our sins comes /irs¢, failures and successes alike all needing the sprinkled blood.

What does the next flash, or even the same flash, show? Not a promise merely, but a declaration of one of God’s grand facts: “Thou hast forgiven Thy people from Egypt even until now.” All along, ever since He byought us out of the house of bondage, that we might be His own happy servants, even until now, this very New Year’s day, He has forgiven; yes, ‘even until now,” this very minute. And so we start out upon the New Year, forgiven; our work begins again, ‘‘ forgiven.”

What about all this forgiven work? What has become of it? Where is it? ‘‘ Surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God.” ‘That is where it is, yours and mine: poor, feeble, failing, forgiveness-needing, passing and past, though it be; not done with, and on the way to being forgotten; not even stored away in the archives of eternity; safer, more honoured than that, it is with our God, and ‘‘surely” so.- Do not you think that what is with Him is in sufficiently safe keeping? Is it not enough that the glory of the Lord is thus our reward in our work? Well may Paul say that ‘* God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love,” when it is all, just where we ourselves are, in the safe keep-

* From Word and Work Magazine.

ing of His own hand. For ‘the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God.” Works past, as well as works present and future, are ¢here. -

Then as to the work before us. There really is nothing but encouragement in His word for His workers: not a precept without a corresponding promise; not an allusion to difficulties without ten times as many clear corresponding notes of hope and help. And, of course, what He promises He not only means, but actually does fulfil to His faithful ones.

Let us just think for a few minutes, for our comfort, what He does say. ‘ Work; for I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts.” That alone is the grandest, sweetest, richest “guerdon” here that any loving heart canask, ‘‘ With you”; not merely looking down out

of the sky at you struggling in your work, but by your very side, closer than the nearest colleague, holding you by the hand, whispering words of strange power for you to use, and words of still stranger power for your own heart only, calming, and strengthening, and gladdening it; so that if you are ‘‘men wondered at” by others, you are a great deal more wondered at by yourself. You are so “marvellously helped,” that you ‘‘ never would have thought it!” No, of course noty but, you see, His thoughts towards you in your work were much better than yours, and you can say:

“* And now I find Thy promise true,
Of perfect peace and rest;
I cannot sigh — I can but sing
While leaning on Thy breast,
And leaving everything to Thee
Whose ways are always best.”

Some of us know what it is to be miserably afraid of making mistakes in our work. How graciously He meets this with ‘‘ I will direct their work in truth.” If we could see under the surface, surely we should see that no mistakes are made when we are really trusting this word. Asking without trusting, z.e. not ‘‘in faith,” or asking asa sort of experiment upon the promise, or taking it for granted ina general way that God is directing us, or going ahead in our particular line without constant uplooking, with the unacknowledged idea that, because we were directed yesterday, things will come all right to-day; all this is not the simple, implicit, and continual waiting of our eyes upon the Lord our God, which meets the constant guidance of His eye. But watching daily, and trusting simply, this promise will no more fail than any other. And this, too, is ordained in the hand of a Mediator. He who appeared to-Saul, and said, ‘‘It shall be told thee what thou must do,” but delegated to none the showing how great things he must ‘suffer, seems to be foreshadowed by Moses, who was not only to bring the causes of the people to God, but to ‘‘show them the work that they must do.” So will our Lord Jesus Christ Himself show us the work that we must do day by day. And when we look onward, perhaps a little wearily, down the long vista of a busy year, and say, “Neither is this a work of one day or two,” He answers, with quick understanding of our thoughts, ‘Lo, I am with you al, the days.” So, like Asaph and his brethren, we may go on ‘‘ministering dcfore the Ark (i.e., in the special and immediate presence of our Lord) continually, as every day’s work required.”

Again, in the interests of the bright side and true side of “His guerdon here,” glance at the typical contrast between the labour in - the house of bondage, making bricks in full tale without any straw given or provided, and the splendid supply of materials. for ‘‘ the work of the service of the sanctuary.” ‘‘ For the stuff they had was sufficient for all the work to make it, and too much!” Was not this written for our learning, dear fellow workers? We may have no ‘‘stuff” at all, to our thinking; we may be saying, ‘“‘ Have I now any power at all to say anything?” But just as these costly and fitting materials were brought to Bezaleel and Aholiab ‘‘ every morning,” so regularly and abundantly shall the “stuff” be supplied to ‘‘ every one whose heart stirred him up to come unto the work to do it.” For it is written, ‘‘ My God shall supply all your need, according to His riches in glory by Jesus Christ.” Surely that measure of pledged supply is ‘‘ sufficient and too much.” And, again, we see the hand of the Mediator, for this magnificent supply is given ‘‘ by Christ Jesus,” God’s great Almoner.

Now for another promise, which certainly does not look like that mistaken linking of ‘‘ labour” with ‘‘ many a sorrow,” and ‘‘ many a tear,” of which. so many seem to have a dread. But God — says, ‘* Mine elect shall long ev/oy the work of their hands.” Quite ee pa

fearlessly I appeal to you to bear witness if God is not true to His word! And I would challenge the world to produce a band of men and women who “enjoy” their work as we enjoy ours! Just let the faces of the workers at any gathering bear unconscious witness whether they enjoy their work, or not. Look at them as they come away, tired, but happy and thankful! I don’t think the fagged home goers from any ballroom would witness in the same way to real, downright enjoyment of ¢hezy work, ‘‘ pleasure” though they choose to call it. Or compare the faces that leave the Stock Exchange, or a political meeting, or any place where they have been simply doing their own work. Yes, there are plenty of troubles, and delays, and failures, and headaches, and much weariness, too, I know all about that; but nevertheless, when His elect are truly doing His work, sowing His seed, and reaping His precious sheaves, they enjoy that work, as He says they ska//, And they shall long enjoy it, too; other enjoyments pass away in passing, but this only passes on to eternal fruition of enjoyment. No wonder if work that abides shall be long enjoyed.

When the Lord says to us, ‘‘ Prepare thy work,” we have the comfort of recollecting that He has prepared our works for us (Eph. ii. 10, marg.). - Why not take the comfort of this as to any untried work which we may be ‘‘called unto”? That sphere did not make itself, neither did man form it into just what it is at his own will; it was God who prepared it for the worker whom He intended for it; and if there is sufficient evidence that you are called to it, then you may rest assured that He “prepared” it and ‘‘ ordained” it for you. Do not let us dwell ov/y on our side of the preparation; but let us recollect that He who prepares the workers prepares the works too, and prepares them for us to walk in, 7.¢., just to go on step by step; for that is ‘‘ walking.” Then, for our own side, let us recollect, *‘Thou also hast wrought all our works in us”; or, as the very striking margin has it, ‘‘for us.” So we see that He has wrought in us, and for us, every bit of work we have ever succeeded in doing as yet; therefore to Him be all the glory! And, no less evidently, it will be He Himself who will work in us and for us every single bit that we shall yet do; therefore in Him be all our trust! And yet (oh, wonderful condescension!), though it is all His own doing from beginning to end, “‘ your work shall be rewarded.” ‘‘ Every

Z man” (just think; every one of us poor workers!) “shall receive his own reward,” not a general premium all round. And this, too, by the hand of our Mediator. Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for ye serve the ‘‘ Lord Christ.”

May we, for, and in, and all through, the coming year, be so many individual illustrations of St. Paul’s sevenfold desire for his converts as to ‘‘every good work.”

May we —

Be ‘‘ prepared unto every good work.”

‘* Be ready to every good work.”’

Be ‘‘ throughly furnished unto all good works.” “Abound in every good work.”

. ‘Being /ruz!ful in every good work.”

. Be stablished “‘ in every good word and work.”. Be made “‘Zerfect in every good work.”

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