We Must Do the Work

J. Stuart Holden :

"My soul is continually in my hand"

(Ps. 119:109).


See how entirely unanswerable is the logic of those demands which the New Testament makes upon us. 

It lays foundations, and then says "Build!" 

It declares truth, and then says "Act!" 

It unveils fountains, and then says "Drink, and be renewed!" 

It reveals a pathway, and then says "Walk!" 

It discloses an enemy's dispositions, and then says "Fight!" 

It says "You have been transplanted; now grow!" 

In short, it couples the Divine and the human in indispensable association. 

It proclaims what God has done and is ever doing for His children, and then it lays down what they, in consequence, must also do. 

It makes known what He is, and then announces what they must become--and why. 

It unveils the faith of God, and then indicates what must be the responsive and active quality of their faith. 

It publishes the fact that "it is He that hath made us," and then it goes on to insist that we fashion ourselves. 

Its unqualified assurances lift us to the very heavens. And then its inescapable imperatives bring us back to earth, to work out here the implicates of our belief and the obligations of our moral and spiritual insights into the concrete realities of Christian character.