Strength and courage are needed more in a day of decline than when all is going well. Besides contending with the enemy, we may not find that we have the support of our brethren. We may meet with that which chills the heart and fills it with sorrow. But it is here the heart is tested, and it is here we find that God only can sustain.
There is not only conflict with a common enemy, but there is the state of the saints to be borne as a burden on the heart. Will you bear this burden? Will you cleave to the saints in the power of divine love when they turn away from you as all in Asia did from Paul? Will you seek to serve them when you are misunderstood, misrepresented, or even maligned, as Paul said to the Corinthian saints, “I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved”?
The state of the saints with whom we have to do will often be the means of testing the state of our own hearts. It is easy to love my brethren when they love me and heap their favors upon me. But do I love them just the same when they turn against me or forsake me? Do I still cling to them when they have given me up? Do I intercede for them night and day when perhaps they are only speaking evil of me?
The real question is, Have I got the heart of Christ about the saints? And do I see Christ’s glory bound up in them? If these things are so, then I shall act toward them according to His heart and seek His glory in connection with their state, regardless of personal rights or present advantage.
A. H. Rule (adapted)