December 23 Daily Devotional

Look on this picture—and on that

Look ... at that worldly life which those people live who are on the broad way.... Look at the life and analyse it. What is there in it ultimately ...? Can you imagine anything that is so utterly empty finally? What real satisfaction is there in such a life? ... What is the gain? ... What is there uplifting and ennobling in dressing in a particular way and having their photographs in the so-called society papers, in being known for their fashionable attire or personal appearance, or for the figure they cut ...? Look at the people who live for such things, analyse their lives, and especially their end.... As the hymn puts it,

Fading is the worldling’s pleasure,
All his boasted pomp and show.

How empty it is!

... Then look at the other life and see how essentially different it is in every respect. The broad way is empty and useless, intellectually, morally, and in every other respect. It leaves man with a nasty taste in his mouth even at the time.... But look at the other, and immediately you see a striking contrast. Read the Sermon on the Mount again. What a life! Take this New Testament. What food for your intellect! Here is something to engage your mind.... Can you imagine a higher intellectual occupation, apart from anything else? Here you have something to think about, something to grapple with intellectually, something that gives you real satisfaction. How ethical, how uplifting, how large and noble it is.

The trouble ultimately with all who are not Christian is that they have never seen the glory and the magnificence of the Christian life. How noble and pure and upright it is! But they have never seen it. They are blind to it ... once a man gets a glimpse of the glory and majesty and privilege of this high calling I cannot imagine that he would ever desire anything else.

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, ii, pp. 232–4