Moody on “Duty”—How He Loves His Mother. – Dwight Lyman Moody

I have an old mother away down in the Connecticut mountains, and I have been in the habit of going to see her every year for twenty years. Suppose I go there and say, “Mother, you were very kind to me when I was young—you were very good to me; when father died you worked hard for us all to keep us together, and so I have come to see you because it is my duty.” I went then only because it was my duty. Then she would say to me, “Well, my son, if you only come to see me because it is your duty, you need not come again.” And that is the way with a great many of the servants of God. They work for Him because it is their duty—not for love. Let us abolish this word duty, and feel that it is only a privilege to work for God, and let us try to remember that what is done merely from a sense of duty is not acceptable to God.