(William Law, "A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life")

If our common life is not a common course of . . .
humility,
self denial,
renunciation of the world,
poverty of spirit,
and heavenly affection,
we do not live the lives of Christians!

But yet though it is thus plain that this, and this
alone, is Christianity: a uniform, open, and visible
practice of all these virtues. Yet it is as plain, that
there is little or nothing of this to be found, even
among the better sort of people.

You see them often at Church, and pleased with
fine preachers. But look into their lives, and you see
them just the same sort of people as others are, who
make no pretenses to devotion. They have . . .
the same taste of the world,
the same worldly cares, and fears, and joys;
the same turn of mind,
equally vain in their desires.

You see . . .
the same fondness for state and equipage,
the same pride and vanity of dress,
the same self love and indulgence,
the same foolish friendships, and groundless hatreds,
the same levity of mind, and trifling spirit,
the same fondness for diversions,
the same idle dispositions, and vain ways of
spending their time as the rest of the world,
who make no pretenses to Christianity.

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CHRISTIAN

(William Law, "A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life")

Let us not vainly content ourselves with
the common disorders of our lives . . .
the vanity of our expenses,
the folly of our diversions,
the pride of our habits,
the idleness of our lives,
and the wasting of our time,
fancying that these are such imperfections as we
fall into through the unavoidable weakness and
frailty of our natures.

But let us be assured, that these disorders of our
common life are owing to this: we don't sincerely
intend to please God in all the actions of our life.

So that the fault is not that we desire to be holy, but
through the weakness of our nature fall short of it.
But it is because we have not piety enough to intend
to be as holy as we can, or to please God in all the
actions of our life.

She that spends her time and money in the unreasonable
ways and fashions of the world, does not do so because
she lacks power to be wise and religious in the management
of her time and money; but because she has no intention
or desire of being so.

The reason why you see . . .
no real mortification or self denial,
no eminent charity,
no profound humility,
no heavenly affection,
no true contempt of the world,
no Christian meekness,
no sincere zeal,
no eminent piety
in the common lives of Christians, is this,
because they do not so much as intend to
be exact and exemplary in these virtues.

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CHRISTIAN

Every believer, however limited and veiled from
human eye his sphere of life, will create a public
sentiment respecting his individual self. His
relations, his friends, his neighbors, will form
their opinion of his character, doings, and life.

Few pass through life incognito to eternity!

Few slide through society unseen, unnoticed, unfelt.

Each individual Christian should especially live
for an object. He should so live as to make his
talents, influence, and example tell upon the
present and eternal well being of all with whom
He comes in contact.

"No man lives to himself."

As a "light," He is to shine!

As "salt," He is to influence!

As a "witness," He is to testify for Christ.

In a world like this, where there is....
so much evil to correct,
so much temptation to resist,
so much sorrow to soothe,
so much need to supply,
so much misery to counteract,
so much ignorance to instruct,
so much good to be done,
none need be all the day idle, dreaming
away existence, vegetating in selfishness,
not living for man or laboring for God.

Oh, be an earnest, active Christian!

Be up and doing!

Life is too real, too solemn, too responsible,
for sluggishness, inactivity, and selfishness!

We are gliding down the
stream onward to eternity!

Shall we spend our fleeting moments in grasping
at the floating straw, when for every moment and
act of our present course we shall soon be cited at
Christ's bar for scrutiny and judgment?

Souls are perishing!

Ignorance of the gospel is prevailing!

Iniquity is abounding!

Satan is unslumbering!

Death plies its scythe, and the grave yawns
each moment, and an eternity of bliss or of
woe is gathering at every stroke of the
pendulum, deathless beings to its bosom!

Shall we not, then, be active and earnest in a world like this?


Winslow, "The Sensitiveness of Christ to Suffering"

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CHRISTIAN

(John Angell James, "The Church in Earnest")

We need to re-study our Bibles, and learn
what real Christianity is--how holy, how heavenly,
how spiritual, how loving, how morally and socially
excellent a matter it is. What separation from the
world, what devoutness, what intense earnestness,
what conscientiousness, what enlarged benevolence,
what unselfishness, what zealous activity, what
unearthliness, what seeds of celestial virtue--our
profession of godliness implies.

Having examined this, and obtained an impressive
idea of it, let us survey our own state, and ask if
we do not need, and ought not to seek, more of the
prevalence of such a piety as this, which, in fact, is
primitive Christianity.

Is our spiritual condition what it ought to be, what
it might be, what it must be--to fulfill our high
commission as the salt of the earth and the light of
the world? A Christian, acting up in some tolerable
measure to his profession, walking in the holiness
of the Gospel--is the strongest and most emphatic
testimony for God to our dark revolted world, next
to that of Christ Himself.

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CHRISTIAN

(adapted from Winslow's, "The Sensitiveness of Christ to Suffering")

"Then He said to them all: "If anyone would
come after Me, he must deny himself and take
up his cross daily and follow Me." Luke 9:23

True Christian discipleship demands an
uncompromising avowal of attachment to
Christ, and of adherence to His truth.

The offence of the cross HAs not ceased!

A real decision for the Redeemer cannot exist
without some sacrifice, demanded and made,
as a term of discipleship.

May the Lord to give you grace henceforth,
'Caleb like', wholly and unreservedly to follow
Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach.

We read of the first disciples of the Lord,
"And they forsook all and followed Him."

The solemn confession of Christ you have made
before the world pledges you to the offence, the
shame, the crucifixion, and the self-denial of the
cross of Jesus.

You have bound that cross around your heart!

You have identified yourself with....
its reproach and its boast,
its defeats and its victories,
its humiliation and its glory.

Onward you must bear it....
through flood and flame,
through good and through evil report,
glorying in its doctrine,
enduring its crucifixion,
until the Master bids you exchange your sword
for a scepter, your cross for a crown, which His
own hands will place upon your head!

Blessed, thrice blessed, you who, when that blessed
moment arrives, will be enabled calmly, exultingly to
exclaim, "As for me, my life has already been poured
out as an offering to God. The time of my death is near.
I have fought a good fight, I have finished the race,
and I have remained faithful. And now the prize awaits
me; the crown of righteousness that the Lord, the
righteous Judge, will give me on that great day of His
return. And the prize is not just for me but for all who
eagerly look forward to His glorious return." 2 Tim. 4:6-8.

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CHRISTIAN

"The Blessed Life" by F. B. Meyer

Dear Christian reader, seek some quiet spot,
some still hour, and yield yourself to God.

Make a definite consecration of yourselves to God.
With most it would be sufficient to write out Miss
Havergal's hymn, "Take my life, and let it be," and
to sign your name at the bottom.

Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee.
Take my moments and my days; let them flow in ceaseless praise.
Take my hands, and let them move at the impulse of Thy love.
Take my feet, and let them be swift and beautiful for Thee.

Take my voice, and let me sing always, only, for my King.
Take my lips, and let them be filled with messages from Thee.
Take my silver and my gold; not a mite would I withhold.
Take my intellect, and use every power as Thou shalt choose.

Take my will, and make it Thine; it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart, it is Thine own; it shall be Thy royal throne.
Take my love, my Lord, I pour at Thy feet its treasure store.
Take myself, and I will be ever, only, all for Thee.

Sign here __________________

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CHRISTIAN

From Spurgeon's, "Christ's People- Imitators of Him"

My brethren, let me say, be like Christ at all times.

Imitate him in 'public.'

Most of us live in some sort of public capacity-
many of us are called to work before our fellow-men every day.

We are watched;
our words are caught;
our lives are examined- taken to pieces.

The eagle-eyed, argus-eyed world observes everything we do,
and sharp critics are upon us.

Let us live the life of Christ in public.

Let us take care that we exhibit our Master, and not ourselves-
so that we can say, "It is no longer I that live, but Christ that lives
in me."

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CHRISTIAN