Divine measurement.
Assuming that the realization of this vision is found in no actual structure ever built by the hand of man, but in that great spiritual edifice, the Church of Jesus Christ, which is still in course of erection, we ask what it is that is measured by the tape, or the reed, which the heavenly messenger holds in his hand. What are the heights and the depths and the lengths that are seen and reckoned in the kingdom of Christ? They are those of—
I. SINCERITY. There may be much singing and many "prayers," and much preaching; there may be multiplied activities of many kinds; but if there be not sincerity and simplicity of heart, there will be nothing for the measuring angel to record. If, however, in the culture of our own character or in the work we do for our Lord, our hearts go forth in genuine endeavor, if we think and feel what we say, if we mean what we do, if the purpose of our soul is toward God and toward the honor of his Name,—then we are really "building; ' and the more of spirituality and of earnestness there is in our effort, the higher will the figure be which the recording angel enters in his book.
II. TRUSTFULNESS. "Without faith it is impossible to please God" in anything we undertake for him. The measure of our trustfulness is, to a large extent, the degree of our acceptableness. Trustfulness is in the freeness and fullness of the grace of God, in the presence and the promises of the Son of God, in the power of the Spirit of God to enlighten and to renew. The more of this element in our personal relations with God and in our Christian walk, the higher the sacred fabric rises in the reckoning of the heavenly world.
III. LOVE. This is an essential element in all Christian edification.
1. Love to Christ himself. The restraining love, which keeps back from all evil; the constraining love, which inspires to cheerful and prompt obedience; the submissive love, which knows how to endure as seeing the Invisible One; the lasting love, which outlives all the changes and triumphs over all the difficulties of human life.
2. Love to Christian men; which is more and better than being drawn toward the amiable and the attractive; which consists in the outgoing of the heart toward all the disciples of Jesus Christ because they are such, even though in taste and temper and habit of life they may differ from ourselves; which includes the willingness to acknowledge all that love Christ, and to work with them in every open way.
3. Love to those outside the Christian pale—the love of a holy pity for men who are wrong because they are wrong, which shows itself in active, practical, self-denying labor to raise and to restore them. The practical question for each man and for every Church to ask is this—When the measuring angel comes to us, and applies his reed to our worship, our work, our life, what is the entry he makes? what is his measurement? There may be balance-sheets and attendances, activities and engagements, which are very satisfactory in the human estimate, but if simplicity, trustfulness, love, be not found, there is nothing to count in the reckoning of Heaven (see 1 Corinthians 13:1-13.).—C.