ainst God is simply an
offence against the common life; it is attempting to draw away from
instead of ministering to the common good. The sinful man thinks it
will pay him to be selfish; his impulse is to suppose that he can gain
more happiness, can drink more deeply of the cup of life, by doing it
at the expense of other people. We all do it more or less, and yet the
world might have learned by this time that selfishness does _not_ pay;
the thoroughly selfish man is an unhappy man, for he has not drawn upon
the source of abiding joy. Like love, selfishness is a guest for life,
but whereas love obtains more abundant life by freely giving itself,
sin loses hold on life by trying to grab and keep it. Every man is
seeking life and seeking it in one or other of these opposite ways; he
is either fulfilling the self by serving the whole, or he is trying to
feed the self by robbing the whole. But life is God, and there is no
life which is not God. God is the life all-abundant, the life infinite
and eternal, the life that never grows old, the life that is joy.
Every man, consciously or subconsciously, wants that life; he is
wanting it all the time. Why does the man of business spend so many
hours in his office in the effort to make money? It is because money
represents power, power that can purchase "more life and fuller."
Probably he does not want it all for himself; he works for love of his
family or love of the community, and his desire to serve them makes his
work gladder, so that already he has more abundant life than he would
otherwise possess. Analyse human action, no matter what, and it will
be seen to point in one or other of these two directions, self-ward or
all-ward. If the former, it will shrivel the soul, it makes for death;
if the latter, it will expand the soul, it makes for life. This is a
spiritual law which knows no exception; in the long run the loving deed
brings larger life and joy, the selfish deed brings pain and darkness.
"Be not deceived, God is not mocked; whatsoever a man soweth that shall
he also reap. He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap
corruption, but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap
eternal life."

It is evident from the foregoing that even the sinful life is a quest
for God, although it does not know itself to be such, for in seeking
life saint and sinner alike are seeking God, the all-embracing life.
And the sinner _must_ learn that to seek life