Job 1:5

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"Thus did Job continually." Job 1:5

Many persons do good occasionally. It is easy to be good outwardly on ceremonial occasions: it is to be in the fashion; it is to be running along the rut of custom; not indeed to appear to be good under such circumstances would be to incur opprobrium. Church-going may be an occasional exercise; prayer may be an intermittent enjoyment. The characteristic excellence of Job's worship was that it was permanent, continuous, unbroken, proceeding with the regularity of life, and completing itself from time to time like a piece of concerted music. We are exhorted to pray without ceasing. The apostle desires us in everything by prayer and supplication to make known our requests unto God. Exercise in such holy worship is like exercise in everything else: it strengthens the faculties; it encourages the soul; it tends towards perfectness. We should read the Bible continually, that is to say, it should be the man of our counsel, the companion of our day-march, and the enjoyment of our solitude; it is not to be read here and there, intermittently, eclectically, but is to be studied throughout in all its proportion and harmony. People do not get good by going to church once: a single shower upon the earth is of little consequence; the great rain consists in shower upon shower, the water coming down for the time being continuously, copiously, and as it were hospitably, feeding and nourishing the earth. It is by patient continuance in well-doing that we are to achieve glory, honour, and immortality, and to put to silence the ignorance of foolish men, showing that our good-doing is not a spasmodic feeling or action, but is the very breath and energy of the soul, the sweet and gracious necessity of the new life that is within us. To be irregular in sacrifice, in worship, in devotion, in service, is to be irregular in the heart-beat of love towards God. Who does not regret the irregular action of the heart, even from a physical point of view? What, then, shall be said of irregularity of heart-action in reference to spiritual loyalty and continuity in the exhibition and enjoyment of a holy life? But there is no continuance in ourselves; "we all do fade as a leaf;" our poor little life plays itself out: what, then, is to be done? Underneath, our life must be connected with the Fountain of all being; it must be identified with God in Christ and through Christ, as the branch is part of the vine. Hear the Lord Jesus: "Abide in me... without me ye can do nothing;" hear the Apostle Paul: "I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me." All the passages which exhort to godly life exhort also to its continuance: "Be thou faithful until death, and I will give thee a crown of life:" "He that endureth to the end shall be saved." The Bible is full of such animating and encouraging speech.