Serving by Loving

Paul intreats us: "Stand fast...in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." (Gal. 5:1)

Our freedom from bondage to sin can be illustrated this way. It is as if a woman had a male employer; she is paid for her work in weekly wages, and under the rules of her employer, whom she has tried to please, but toward whom her service had been one of obligation only. Finally, however, the employer falls in love with her, and she becomes his bride and shares all his fortunes. At once the whole spirit of her service has changed. She may perhaps continue to do the same things that she did before, but she does them now from a different motive. The old sense of duty is lost in the new sense of love. The cold word "employer" is transformed into the loving word "husband."

"And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, that thou shalt call me Ishi (my husband); and shalt call me no more Baali (my Lord)" (Hos. 2:16)

But imagine this bride beginning after a while to look back on her low estate and to be so overwhelmed by the retrospect as to feel unworthy of union with her husband, and consequently to lose the inward sense of this union. Who can doubt that very soon the old sense of working for wages would drive out the new sense of working for love, and in spirit the old name, "my employer," would take the place of the new name, "my husband"?

We exclaim at the folly of such a course. But isn't this just what happens to many Christians?

-Hannah Whitall Smith