The Greatest Thing In The World

In his book, The Greatest Thing In The World, Henry Drummond wrote about Love as being the ultimate measure of a true Christian. He understood that Christians imagined what their Judgment Day might look like, who would greet them, and the great esteem Jesus might lavish upon them for being a “good” Christian.  

To shed light on their imaginings Drummond wrote this:  

"The test of religion, the final test of religion, is not religiousness, but Love. Not what I have done, not what I have believed, not what I have achieved. But how I have discharged the common charities of life. Sins of commission in that awful indictment are not even referred to. By what we have not done, by sins of omission, we are judged. It could not be otherwise, for the withholding of love is the negation of the spirit of Christ, the proof that we never knew him, that for us, he lived in vain. It means that He suggested nothing in all our thoughts, that He inspired nothing in all our lives, that we were not once near enough to Him to be seized with the spell of His compassion for the world.

"It is in the presence of humanity that we shall be charged. And the spectacle itself, the mere sight of it, will silently judge each one. Those will be there whom we have met and helped: or there, the unpitied multitude whom we neglected or despised. No other witness need be summoned. No other charge than lovelessness shall be preferred. Be not deceived. The words which all of us shall one day hear, sound not of theology, but of life, not of churches and saints, but of the hungry and the poor, not of creeds and doctrines, but of shelter and clothing, not of Bibles and prayer books, but of cups of cold water in the name of Christ. Who is Christ? He who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the sick."

Jesus loved the multitudes and showed us how to do the same. He didn't speak of war, let alone sanction it or ask followers to fund it. He turned us away from all evil, asking us to turn the other cheek toward love and compassion. He told us to love our neighbors and welcome strangers. He told us to be kind. Nowhere did Jesus suggest we should deport or inflict suffering on those some believe don't belong here.

Love rules the heart of true Christians. To do, say, or believe otherwise is to take the Lord's name in vain.

To read the full 88-page book, click here.