The miracles of Jesus - Classical Christian Literature by Athleo.net

332 THE BARREN FIG-TREE
amount of faith and goodness, you insure yourself
against the risk of perdition in the future. It is a
service, it is a self-consecration, it is a giving-up of
self to Christ, it is a giving-forth of self to others— it is,
in short, bearing fruit. I do not say that this fruitbearing
must be obviously connected with recognised
Christian communities alone, or even chiefly. In the
broadest sense, I hold that all good and conscientious
work is Church work, if only it is work done for the
kingdom of God. The lawyer may serve the Just
One in his profession
;
the
physician may fulfil the
command of Jesus, " Ileal the sick " ;
the scientific
man may reveal Him who is the faithful and true,
in whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning.
We gladly recognise all this, but whether there or
here, Christ's hungry heart is unsatisfied if there is no
serving others for His sake, while we profess to be
His. Then He is disappointed with us, as He was
when He turned aside from the luxuriant fig-tree,
having found on it nothing but leaves.
How much more perilous the state of any who live
merely for dress or for company, who spend their
time in self-indulgence, and whose thoughts never go
beyond things seen and temporal. If they were
insects dancing in the evening sunshine, or if they
were brute beasts plodding at a plough, they might
be justified in being as they are ;
but if they are to live
for ever, if life is so precious and its issues so momentous
that the Son of God died in order to make
future blessedness possible to them, then surely He
ought to find in their hearts love and faith—those
buds of promise which will be sure to ripen into
fruit.