WATCHING FOR DUTIES
‘Watch ye.’
Our subject is watchfulness.
I. We must watch our duty to God.—What is it? We know God only in His relation to ourselves; and to ourselves God is a Father.
(a) ‘ Watch’ that you may never be drawn aside to think of God but as a Father.
(b) ‘ Watch’ your prayer; watch against wandering thoughts or mere formality.
(c) ‘ Watch’ that you always have some work in hand which you mean to be specially for the service of God, and ‘watch’ that that work does not degenerate into a work done to please yourself, or for some temporal good, or for applause, or for self-exaltation, or self-satisfaction, but for God.
II. Watch your duty to yourselves, your duty to your own soul.
(a) ‘ Watch’ for your soul’s sake, and for your own sake that you do not willingly allow any pleasure, any society, any business, any thought or imagination which your own conscience tells you is injurious to your inner life.
(b) ‘ Watch’ conscience; always listen to its still small voices; obey instantly its promptings if it be ever so little a thing.
(c) Watch the body. Do not neglect it; do not count it religion to speak slightingly or think disparagingly of the body. Therefore for religion’s sake look well to the health of the body.
III. Watch your duty towards your fellow-creatures.—No one is isolated. God has placed you one in a great system.
(a) Watch your duty to the whole world.
(b) Watch your duty to the Church. Your duty is to further in every way you can its union, its peace, its holiness, its growth; to use and enjoy all its ordinances that God has provided for your soul’s growth and health and happiness; its services and its sacraments, especially Holy Communion, regularly, devoutly, believingly. Take that part—which belongs to you of the laity—in all the services by making the responses distinctly.
(c) Watch your duty to your own inner circle of relations and friends and neighbours. Remember that that which God has put near to you involves a duty on your part.
Duties are not things which come haphazard and may be done anyhow; they must be ‘watched for’ at all times, and only by watchfulness can we do them.
—Rev. James Vaughan.
Illustration
‘As friend to friend; friends of the soul; “as heirs together of the grace of life,” always looking out for opportunities to do some real good; be true sympathisers in one another’s sorrows, and equally rejoicing in one another’s joys. And the rich to the poor, be bountiful, generous, kind, never condescending; that is offensive; be more respectful to a poor man than to a rich man, caring both for the body and soul of your poorer neighbours, imparting something to both, and, as stewards for God, of your knowledge and education, and your property and your leisure; consecrating all to Him in His poor whom God has given to be the channels to Himself. Making your charities not an impulse, but a principle—an amount given carefully and deliberately, proportioned to your means. Making giving a privilege which you have from God, in the spirit of your Master, and for His dear sake Who loves all alike, and died for all, and who is specially identified with the poor and afflicted. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.” ’