J. C. Ryle John

and that Christ alone can save them, and yet remain silent? Where is our charity if we can see
others going down to hell, and yet say nothing to them about Christ and salvation? We may well
doubt our own love to Christ, if our hearts are never moved to speak of Him. We may well doubt
the safety of our own souls, if we feel no concern about the souls of others.
What are WE ourselves? This is the question, after all, which demands our notice. Do we feel
the supreme importance of spiritual things, and the comparative nothingness of the things of the
world? Do we ever talk to others about God, and Christ, and eternity, and the soul, and heaven,
and hell? If not, what is the value of our faith? Where is the reality of our Christianity? Let us
take heed lest we awake too late, and find that we are lost forever, a wonder to angels and
devils, and, above all, a wonder to ourselves, because of our own obstinate blindness and folly.
JOHN 4:31-42
Workers for the Harvest
Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, "Rabbi, eat something." But he said to them, "I have
food to eat that you know nothing about." So the disciples began to say to one another, "No one
brought him anything to eat, did they?" Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of the one
who sent me and to complete his work. Don’t you say, ‘There are four more months and then
comes the harvest?’ I tell you, look up and see that the fields are already white for harvest! The
one who reaps receives pay and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that the one who sows and the
one who reaps can rejoice together. For in this instance the saying is true, ‘One sows and
another reaps.’ I sent you to reap what you did not work for; others have labored and you have
entered into their labor."
Now many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the report of the woman who
testified, "He told me everything I ever did." So when the Samaritans came to him, they started
asking him to stay with them. He stayed there two days, and because of his word many more
believed. They said to the woman, "No longer do we believe because of your words, for we
have heard for ourselves, and we know that this one really is the Savior of the world."
We have, for one thing, in these verses, an instructive pattern of zeal for the good of others. We
read, that our Lord Jesus Christ declares, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to
finish his work." To do good was not merely duty and pleasure to Him. He counted it as His food
and drink. Job, one of the holiest Old Testament saints, could say, that he esteemed God's word
"more than his necessary food." (Job 23:12.) The Great Head of the New Testament Church
went even further. He could say the same of God's work.
Do we do any work for God? Do we try, however feebly, to set forward His cause on earth--to
check that which is evil, to promote that which is good? If we do, let us never be ashamed of
doing it with all our heart, and soul, and mind, and strength. Whatever our hand finds to do for
the souls of others, let us do it with our might. (Eccles. 9:10.) The world may mock and sneer,
and call us enthusiasts. The world can admire zeal in any service but that of God, and can
praise enthusiasm on any subject but that of religion. Let us work on unmoved. Whatever men
may say and think, we are walking in the steps of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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