Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life--Jud 1:21

George H. Morrison - Devotional Sermons       Love Perfects Service             Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life--Jud 1:21             Think of some young man a hundred years ago drafted into the service of the navy.             Caught by the press-gang and torn away from home, how intolerable that service must have seemed! For a time, it would be the bitterest drudgery performed with many a muttering and curse.             There was no escape--it had to be performed--the lash and the irons followed disobedience; that, in the harshest and extremest sense, was the service of necessity. But can we not imagine that young man rousing himself into a worthier mood?             At the call of danger he would forget his bondage and think of the peril of his native land. And patriotic feelings would arise and duty to his country would awake, and now his service would be a nobler thing because it was the service of duty. Then suppose that a young man like that had sailed in the same vessel with Lord Nelson and had learned to love Nelson with that devoted love which filled the breast of every man who sailed with him.             How different would his service now become! How gladly would he toil and fight and die! The thought of duty would be absorbed in love, and love would make his service perfect.