September 22

Cheerful service

“I will very gladly spend and be spent for you” (2 Cor. 12:15).
“Serve the Lord with gladness” (Psa. 100:2).
“Freely ye have received, freely give” (Matt. 10:8).
Dole not thy duties out to God,
But let thy hand be free.
—F. W. Faber.

As you do His will, do not go about it with a groan and a murmur, but do it with a desire to be well-pleasing in His sight. Sometimes your boy does what you tell him to do, but he does it with such a dark face, and moaning over it all the time. At another time he is glad to do what you tell him, with a bright face and a smile, and that sort of work is worth ten times the other kind.


God promised us a spirit like that, not merely that we shall do His will, but do it rejoicing all the time; working in us what is well-pleasing in His sight, and what is well-pleasing is serving the Lord with gladness.
—Barclay Buxton.

Not in dumb resignation
We lift our hands on high;
Not like the nerveless fatalist,
Content to do and die.
Our faith springs like the eagle
Who soars to meet the sun,
And cries, exulting, unto Thee,
“O Lord, Thy will be done!”
—John Hay.

Thus infectious is the gladness of a life wholly harmonized with God. Surely this acceptance of the will of God was the yoke which the Son of Man carried and which He invites us to bear with Him. In the will of God He found rest, and He promises that rest to those who bear the same yoke. For the yoke on the ox, which looks so heavy, in reality makes light the hard toil of the plow or laden cart. In that yoke Christ found joy and satisfaction, even when the will of God brought to Him base ingratitude, callous rejection, bitter opposition from the very cities He had most graced with His presence and blessed with His gifts.

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