For in him we live, and move, and have
our being; and (as even the heathen poet knew), are the offspring,
the children, of God.
It is _not_ according to the mind of Christ, to worship God as the
heathen do, in order to win him to do our will. It _is_ according
to the mind of Christ to worship God, in order that we may do his
will; to believe that God's will is a good will, good in itself, and
good for us, and for all things and beings; and, therefore, to ask
for strength to do God's will, whatever it may cost us. That is the
mind of Christ, who came not to do his own will, but the will of him
who sent him; who taught us to pray, as the greatest blessing for
which we can ask, 'Father, thy will be done on earth, as it is in
heaven;' who himself, in his utter agony, cried, 'Father, not my
will, but thine, be done.'
Therefore, it is good to go to church; and good, for some at least,
to go as often as possible: but only if we remember why we go, and
whom we go to worship--a Father, who asks of us to worship him in
spirit and in truth. A Father who has told us what that worship is
like.
'Is this (God asked the Jews of old) the fast which I have chosen?
Is it a day for a man to afflict his soul, and bow down his head
like a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him (playing
at being sad, while God has not made him sad)? Wilt thou call this
a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?'
'Is not this the fast which I have chosen? to loose the bands of
wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go
free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to
the hungry, and to bring the poor that are cast out to thine house;
when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and that thou hide
not thyself from thine own flesh.
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