This then is our great encouragement to begin to do our part, and to keep on in our efforts to obey Christ. We are not left to our
own unaided efforts.—While we are working out our own salvation, God is working in us “to will and to do,” and this is our grand hope for success in our efforts. But perhaps you will think, that you must wait till you feel some great distress of mind, and have convictions of sin, and such other feelings as you do not find in your own mind. But, my friends, there is no need of waiting for any thing. Many persons begin to be Christians, without any such previous anxiety and distress. Begin, then, this very day to serve Christ by “denying all ungodliness.” If you are inclined to be careless, or to be fretful, or to be indolent, or to be heedless and forgetful, these are the points where you are to begin to “take up your cross” and follow after Christ. It costs us a good deal of self-denial, when we have careless habits, to cure them, or when we are irritable and fretful, to become meek and patient, or when we are indolent, to become industrious, or when we are negligent and forgetful, to become thoughtful and attentive. And it is in all such matters that Jesus Christ prescribes to us, “Deny
thyself daily, and take up thy cross and follow me.”
And we are very apt to undervalue our opportunities of doing good to others, and to forget that we can imitate Christ by “going about doing good.” The domestic who sets a good example to young children, and by words and acts helps to form their character aright, or who by her labours in the kitchen is contributing to the daily comfort of a household, and aiding the wife and mother to make a happy home to her husband, and to train up her children aright, she surely has a right to feel that she can imitate Christ by “going about doing good.”
Let us then, my friends, set about the duties of the lot our Saviour has appointed us, daily “looking unto him” as our pattern, our guide, and our Lord; daily praying to him for his help and protection, and then when he, who is Master of all the families of earth, shall appear, each of us shall hear his voice saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”
Variations in spelling and hyphenation remain as in the original.
The following corrections have been made to the original text.
Page 11: soon reached the[original has “t e”] ears