The Self-Interest of Being Good

“If thou hadst known the things which belong unto thy peace |” — Luxz xix. 42.

“[]THE things which belong unto thy peace” —

is not this rather an inversion of the common idea? I have been accustomed to think of religious duties as things which belong to God’s peace. I have been in the habit of thinking that religion is my penance, my prostration, my humiliation — that it is my punishment meant to conciliate the Creator and give Him satisfaction. We have come to regard impiety as a refusal to pay tribute — as a thing that will make us richer and God poorer. Our Lord, on the other hand, regards impiety, not as a refusal to pay money, but as a refusal to take it He looks upon godlessness as the declining of a favour which has been offered

to ourselves and whose acceptance would greatly increase our store of happiness. I have often been struck with an experience common to pastors and Sunday School teachers. If the parents of the pupil think he has received any slight from pastor or teacher, the child is absent the next Sunday from its habitual place in the class. This would be very amusing if it were not very sad. The idea is that the lesson of the Sunday School is learned as a favour to the teacher. It is in reality taught by the teacher as a favour to the child. The things therein contained belong to the peace of the child, and are only prescribed by the teacher on that account. The performance of the task is no personal advantage to the teacher. It is only an impersonal advantage — it gratifies his love. So with your Divine Teacher. He prescribes your Sunday lesson because it belongs to your peace. If it brings glory to His name, it is because His name is Love. It is not your homage that gladdens Him; it is your gladness. It is not your tribute He desires; it is your enrichment. It is not your possessions that He wants; it is the peace of your soul.

Lord, I have learned by experience that Calvary belongs to my peace — that I can only find Thy joy through bearing Thy yoke. All through my life Thou hast been teaching me that my hour of personal happiness is my hour of self-forgetfulness. In the world of outward sense I find the star when I look for it. But in the world of my soul it is all the reverse; I only find the star I love when I am seeking for another star. Iam oftener disappointed by my expectation than in my expectation. When my heart has been bent upon an object, when I have thought of it by day and dreamed of it by night, its coming has not seldom failed to bring the promised joy. Why so, my Lord? Because it belongs to my peace that I should be self-forgetting. It is my telescope that has spoiled me. I have been pointing to my own star. I have been nursing the thought of my coming pleasure. I have been looking through the glass at my approaching happiness. I have forgotten that the very word “happiness” means “that which comes by chance — comes when we seek not for it.” Remove my telescope, O Lord! my telescope belongs not to my peace. Give me a daily lesson in unselfishness! Teach me that the flowers of life come in at the side door when I am at the front door! When I am distressed about my burden, let me hear the cry of another distressed about his burden! Tell me to leave mine a moment in the street till I have run and lifted his! And I know that when I come back to get my own I shall meet a great surprise; my burden will not be there; it will have vanished from the way. In its place there will lie a rose — the Rose of Sharon, the Flower of Eternal Hope; for I shall have found in the hour of sacrifice the thing which belongs unto my peace.