There are three types of Christians. One type is the Christian who does the will of God because he is afraid of going to hell. We call this person a slave because he does everything out of fear of what the Master will do to him.

The second kind of Christian is called the hireling. He works for hire as workers who work for pay. If he does any good, he does it only because he expects God to reward him. He wants to be paid for all he does. This is the person who tries to bargain with God: “I’ll do this for You, Lord, if you’ll do this for me/’ Jesus spoke of the hireling when He said of those who do good that they may receive glory from men, “Verily, I say unto you, they have received their reward.”

The third and highest kind of Christian is he who…. loves his fellow man spontaneously without ever thinking of hell or getting a reward for anything. As we read in “The Way of a Pilgrim,” “God wills us to come to Him neither as slaves or mercenaries but in the manner of sons and daughters who lead honorable lives for the love of Him and from the eagerness to serve Him.”

One morning a little boy put a piece of paper beside his mother’s plate. On it he had written: “Mother owes John:

For running errands: $.25

For being good: $.10

For taking music lessons: $.15

Extras: $.05

Total: $.55 

His mother smiled but said nothing. At lunchtime she placed the bill with .55$ on it by her son’s plate. But there was another little bill that read: “John owes mother:

For being good: $0.00

For nursing him through a long illness: $0.00

For shoes, clothes, gloves, playthings: $0.00

For all his meals and beautiful room: $0.00

Total: John owes mother $0.00

Tears came to his eyes. He threw his arms around his mother’s neck and returning the .55$ said, “Take the money back, Mom, and let me love you and do things for nothing.”

How inspiring are examples of Christians who worked for God not as slaves or mercenaries but spontaneously out of love for Him. A. J. Cronin tells of a nurse who for twenty years, single-handedly served a ten-mile area in England. “I marveled,” he says, “at her patience, her fortitude and her cheerfulness. She was never too tired at night to rise for an urgent call. Her salary was most inadequate, and late one night, after a particularly strenuous day, I ventured to protest to her, ‘Nurse, why don’t you make them pay you more? God knows you are worth it,’ ‘If God knows I’m worth it,’ she answered, ‘that’s all that matters to me.’ ” She was working not as a slave or a mercenary but out of pure love for God.

A church volunteer worker was making the rounds in a hospital, bringing cheer to patients and helping them in many little ways. A patient noticed by her tag that she was affiliated with a certain church. He asked, “Are you hired by the Church to do this work?” “Oh no,” she replied quickly. “We are volunteers.” Before she had a chance to explain further, the patient asked, “Why?” She replied, “I love the Lord, and this is one way I can express it, by helping others.”

The patient found this hard to believe. “You mean you don’t get paid? You do this for nothing?”

“We do it for something,” she smiled — “for the hope that we can bring comfort to you who are sick and share with you our Savior’s love and strength.”

The man was quiet for a few moments, then replied, “If the church really cares that much about us sick folks, maybe there is still hope for this old world of ours.”

A missionary doctor in Korea who had just performed major surgery on a poor peasant woman was asked, “Doctor, how much would you be paid for an operation like this back in America?” He replied, “About five hundred dollars.” “How much will you be paid for it here?” Looking at the poor Korean woman who had begged him to save her life, he replied, “For this I will get her gratitude and my Master’s smile. But that is worth more to me than all the money that the world can give.”

My friend what type of Christian are you?

Fr A Coniaris