p. 313 | DO ALL TO THE GLORY OF GOD

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, May 13, 1880

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 20

DO ALL TO THE GLORY OF GOD.

By A. S. Hutchins; L. Bean

The apostle exhorts thus: “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” 1 Cor. 10:31. To heed this injunction, one must certainly have cool reflection, must often weigh his motives and actions, balancing the scale with care. Unhealthy and questionable excitements should be avoided.

How many times God has cautioned and counseled his people in love. Before us lies Spiritual Gifts, vol. 2, published in 1855. In this we read: “I saw that it was right that some of the brethren East should move West; that the brethren in those rugged New England States have more experience, and are more accustomed to endure trials and hardships than the brethren West; and that it is in the order of God that some move West. But there are those who have it in their minds to move West for the sake of gain. This should not be their object. Their object should be to glorify God and advance his cause. And to accomplish this, they must live out their faith, and show that they regard the present truth above everything else.”

Those beckoned West by duty; those who have made the question one of meditation, counsel, and prayer; those who go to honor God, may leave Eastern brethren and churches with their hearts united in love and Christian fellowship as strongly as ever. And they may bear on to their Western home the blessing and peace of God, confessing that they are “strangers and pilgrims on the earth.”

But sometimes under the bounding pulse of excitement from high Western fever, men may (and certainly will if not walking in the light) lose sight of the glory of God, and fail to recognize the rights, interests, and relations of others; the church may be grieved, and the cause wounded. It is wonderful how exceedingly attractive the sunny West can be made to appear by a man of words, or a ready writer, in a short time. Could Heaven be made proportionally attractive, we might have more confidence in the doctrine of the world's conversion.

Preachers and churches in the East and West are working in the same great cause, and not bound by sectional interests. Our duties and relations to one another are mutual. We must all stand before the Judge. We must give an account for the way we have lived and labored.

As members of the Vermont Conference Committee, we feel it duty to say to those churches from which there has been so heavy a tide of emigration, You owe a duty to absent members calling for letters of commendation. Here the glory of God should be consulted. 1. The rights of those brethren and sisters who have been from us a longer or shorter period of time, who should call for letters, should be sacredly regarded. 2. The church granting letters should strictly regard her own integrity. 3. The interest and prosperity of the church to which persons are recommended should also be well considered. The cause of God, or the prosperity and well-being of the church, are of far greater value than the case of any individual.

Time is short; probation draws to a close. Tests calculated to prove the depth and genuineness of our love for the last message of mercy to the world, lie before us. If we honor and glorify God, we secure peace and happiness to ourselves, and lay up a treasure in Heaven.

A. S. Hutchins. L. Bean.