Life in Earnest Author:American Sunday-School Union, James Hamilton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LECTURE I.I. AN EYE TO THE LORD JESUS. ' Serving the Lord."—Romans xn. 11. " Serving the Lord." The title which James and Jude take to themselves at the o... more »utset of their epistles is, " James—Jude— a servant of Jesus Christ." The original is more forcible still. In the inscriptions of these epistles, as well as in this passage, a true and emphatic rendering would be, " a slave of Jesus Christ;"—" Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, the Lord's bondmen." The believer is the happy captive of Jesus Christ; he has fastened on himself Immanuel's easy yoke, the light burden and delicious chains of a Savior's love ; and though Christ says, " Henceforth I call you no more servants," the disciple can not give up the designation ; there is no other term by which,, at times, he can express that feeling of intense devotedness and self-surrender which fills his loyal bosom. " Truly, O Lord, I am thy servant, and the son of thy handmaid." And far from feeling any ignominy in the appellation, there are times when no name of Jesus sounds sweeter in his ear than " Jesus, my Lord ! Jesus, my Master !" and when no designation more accords with his feeling of entire devoted- ness, than James, a servant, Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ, David, a bondsman of the Lord. There are times when the believer has such adoring views of his Savior's ex- ./ellency, and such affecting views of his Savior's claims, that rather than refuse one requirement, he only grudges that the yoke is so easy that he can scarcely perceive it. the burden so light that he can scarcely rec ognise himself as a servant. He would like something which would identify him more closely with his beloved Savior, some open badge that he might carry, and which would say for him— " I'm not ashamed to own my Lord." If Chr...« less