CAN WE AFFORD IT? by Mrs. L. D. A. Stuttle

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, January 29, 1880

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 55, No. 5

CAN WE AFFORD IT?

By Mrs. L. D. A. Stuttle

BY MRS. L. D. A. STUTTLE.

Can we afford, when we consider the rich reward that will be given to the overcomer, to barter it away for the fading joys of earth? When we consider that this fleeting life is as a vapor, do we feel that we can well afford to spend its precious moments in idleness? Oh! could we only bring ourselves to realize the shortness of life, compared with a never-ending eternity! God only requires of us a few years of patient toil,—a few months of willing, self-sacrificing labor, in return for an eternal weight of glory!

The finite imagination becomes bewildered in attempting to picture the beauties of the home which Jesus has gone to prepare for his people. The description John gives us of the New Jerusalem is enough to bewilder the imagination, and we become lost in attempting to realize a little of its glory. We may be poor now, and destitute, and needy; but by-and-by even the streets of our immortal home will be paved with gold. Those who in this world possess a few tiny pearls and diamonds are accounted rich; but in that city the heavy, massive gates are of solid pearl.

Can we afford to sell our birthright for a mess of pottage, as did Esau? Then let us seek earnestly to enter into that rest, lest any come short of it through neglect and carelessness.

Methinks the lonely Isle of Patmos must have seemed still more dreary after the ravished eye of the aged prophet had gazed on the beauties of the city of our God. And so it is with the Christian; when by faith he catches a glimpse of the realm of bliss, this darksome earth seems still more lone and dreary, and its fading joys allure him not. Oh, glorious “home of the blest!” May God give us energy and perseverance to work manfully for the Master now, that “by-and-by” we may share in its glories with all the redeemed, and unite with them in one grand song of deliverance and praise to Him who purchased for us with his own blood redemption and eternal life.