Chapter 13: True Submission great object. I suppose it to enjoin the duty of aiming at being Holy, and not at our own happiness. Happiness is connected with holiness, but it is not the same thing, but to seek holiness or obedience to God, and to honor and glorify him, is a very different thing from seeking supremely our own happiness.
Another passage is, "Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." Indeed! What! may we not eat and drink to please ourselves? No. We may not even gratify our natural appetite for food, but as subordinate to the glory of God. This is what the gospel requires, for the apostle wrote this to the Christian church.
Another passage is, "Look not on your own things, but every man on the things of another." But it is vain to attempt to quote all the passages that teach this. You may find, on almost every page of the Bible, some passage that; means the same thing, requiring us not to seek our own good, but the benefit of others.
Our Savior says, "Whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life shall save it." That is, If a man aim at his own interest, he shall lose his own interest; if he aim at saving his soul, as his supreme object, be will lose his own soul; he must go out of himself and make the good of others his supreme object, or he will be lost.
And again he says, "There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife or children, or lands, for my sake and the gospels, but he shall receive a hundred-fold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come, eternal life." Here some people may stumble, and say, There is a reward held out as a motive. But, mark! What are you to do? Forsake self for the sake of a reward to self? No; but to forsake self for the sake of Christ and his gospel; and the consequence will be as stated. Here is the important distinction.
In the 13th chapter of Corinthians Paul gives a full description of this disinterested love, or charity, without which a person is nothing in religion. It is remarkable how much he says a person may do, and yet be nothing. "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing "But true gospel benevolence is of this character:
"Charity suffereth long and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not be have itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hope that things, endureth all things." "Seeketh not her own." Mark that.
It has no selfish end, but seeks the happiness of others as its great end. Without this kind of benevolence, we know there is not a particle of religion. You see, I might stand here all night