Daily Devotionals

Music For the Soul

Devotional: January 29th

CHRIST THE TRUE OBJECT OF OUR ENDEAVOR

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. - Philippians 1:21

"Whose image and superscription hath it?" said Christ, " looking at the Roman denarius that they brought and laid in His palm. If the Emperor’s head is on it, why, then, he has a right to the tribute of it. And then He went on to say, " Render, therefore, unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s." So there are things that have God’s head upon them, God’s image and superscription stamped, and these are your hearts, your whole constitution and nature. As plainly as the penny had the head of Augustus on it, and therefore proclaimed that he was emperor where it was current, so plainly does every soul carry in the image of God the witness that He is its owner, and that it should be rendered in tribute to Him.

And amongst all these marks of a Divine possession and a Divine destination printed upon human nature, it seems to me that none are plainer than this fact, that we can all of us thus give ourselves away in the abandonment of a profound and all-commanding love. That capacity unmistakably proclaims that it is destined to be directed towards God, and to find its rest in Him. As distinctly as some silver cup, with its owner’s initials and arms engraved upon it, declares itself to be " meet for the master’s use," so distinctly does your soul, by reason of this faculty, proclaim that it is meant to be turned to Him in whom alone all love can find its perfect satisfaction; for whom alone it is blessed and great to shed life itself; and who only has the authority over our human spirits.

I will not say that such emotions, wherever expended on creatures, are ever wasted. For however unworthy may be the objects on which they are lavished, the man himself is the better and the higher for having cherished them. The mother for her child, though her love and self forgetfulness and self-sacrifice may, in some respects, be called but an animal instinct, is elevated and ennobled by the exercise of them. The patriot and the thinker, the philanthropist, ay! even - although I take it to be the lowest of the scale - the soldier, who, in some cause which he thinks to be a good one, and not merely in the tigerish madness of the battlefield, throws away his life, is lifted in the scale of being by the deed. And so I am not going to say that when men love each other passionately and deeply, and sacrifice themselves for one another, or for some cause or purpose affecting only temporal matters, the precious elixir of life is wasted. God forbid! But I do say that all these objects, sweet and gracious as some of them are, ennobling and elevating as some of them are, if they are taken apart from God, are insufficient to fill your hearts; and that if they are slipped in between you and God, as they often are, then they bring sin and sorrow.