nly true way of giving and receiving as between
minister and people is when it is a matter not of payment but a gift.
When it is an expression of sympathy and affection on both sides, the
relationship is pleasant and may be blessed. When it comes to be a
business transaction, and is to be measured by the rules applicable to
such, it goes far to destroy some of the sweetest bonds, and to endanger
a preacher's best influence.

II. The lofty view here taken of such service.

It is 'the fruit that increaseth to your account.' Fruit, which as it
were is put to their credit in the account-book of heaven, but it is
called by Paul by a sacreder name as being an odour of a sweet smell, a
sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing to God, in which metaphor all the
sacred ideas of yielding up precious things to God and of the sacred
fire that consumed the offering or brought to bear on the prosaic
material gift.

The principle which the Apostle here lays down in reference to a money
gift has, of course, a much wider application, and is as true about all
Christian acts. We need not be staggered at the emphasis with which Paul
states the truths of their acceptableness and rewardableness, but in
order fully to understand the ground of his assurance we must remember
that in his view the root of all such fruit increasing to our account,
and of everything which can claim to be an odour of a sweet smell well
pleasing to God, is love to Christ, and the renewal of our nature by the
spirit of God dwelling in us. In us there dwells no good thing. It is
only as we abide in Him and His words abide in us that we bear much
fruit. Separate from Him we can do nothing. If our works are ever to
smell sweet to God, they must be done for Christ, and in a very profound
and real sense, done by Him.

The essential character of all work which has the right to be called
good, and which is acceptable to God, is sacrifice. The one exhortation
which takes the place and more than fills the place of all other
commandments, and is enforced by the motive which takes the place, and
more than takes the place of all other motives, is, 'I beseech you by
the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice.' It is
works which in the intention of the doer are offered to Him, and in
which therefore there is a surrender of our own wills, or tastes, or
inclinations, or passions, or possessions, that yield to Him an odour of
a sweet smell. The old condition which touc