GOD’S REQUIREMENTS
‘To do good and to communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.’
Do not let any of us pretend that we do not know what God requires of us. We know it well enough. It is, as regards God, to love Him, and as regards man, ‘to do good and to communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.’
I. To communicate: What does it mean?—It means unselfishness as regards what we possess, not to keep to ourselves what we have, to use our gifts in whatever way seems best for the good of the world, to remember that we are the stewards of what God gives us, and not the owners; to be cheerful givers; to learn the exquisite happiness of living for the good of all others, to have the heart at leisure from itself to soothe and sympathise: with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
II. And to do good: it is not only to give; indeed, the indiscriminate, careless charity which gives to silence greedy demands or satisfy a conventional conscience; the reckless, foolish giving which only fosters the plague-spots of pauperism, mendicancy, and imposture, is worse than useless, it is an evil and a curse. Almsgiving, to be any use at all, must be thoughtful and discriminating. To do good: there you have the summary of a true life. We are on earth to give, and not to receive. We are not our own. No man liveth to himself, if he be a true man; and no man dieth to himself. To do good forget not.
III. Will each of you ask yourselves the solemn question, and will you answer it before God: Am I in this life of mine doing any real, unselfish good? Millions do positive harm. Like barren trees, they not only bring forth no fruit, but curse the ground with the blight of their bitter foliage and their unprofitable shadow. Millions if they do no direct or positive harm, yet do absolutely no good.
—Dean Farrar.