"Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." 1 Cor. 15:5858Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 15:58).
I have one word on my heart to press on you before going away, "Be ye steadfast, unmovable." If our hearts are not close to Christ, we are apt to get weary in the way. All is a vain show around us, but that which is inside abides—is true—is the life of Christ—all else goes. When the heart gets hold of this fact it becomes (as to things around) like one taken into a house to work for the day, performs his duties well, but passes through—does not live in the circumstances. To Israel the cloud came down, they stayed; it lifted up, on they went; 'twas all the same to them. Why? Because, had they stayed when the cloud went on, they would not have had the Lord! One may be daily at the desk for fifty years, yet with Christ—the desk only the circumstance—the doing of God's will—making manifest the savor of Christ; that's the simple thing. Whether I go or you go, I stay or you stay, 'tis all one. May that one word be realized in each of us, "steadfast, unmovable," in whatever sphere, as matter of providence, we are found. So the divine life shall be manifested—Christ manifested. That abides; all else changes, but that life remains, abides forever; yes, forever.
There is not a single thing in which we have served Christ which shall be forgotten. Lazy, alas! we all are in service, but all shall come out that's real; and what's real is Christ in us and that only. The appearance now may be very little—not much even in a religious view—but what's real will abide. Our hearts clinging closely to Christ, we shall sustain one another as members of the body of Christ. The love of Christ should hold the whole together, Christ being everything, and we content to be nothing,... helping one another, praying one for the other. I ask not the prayers of saints—I reckon on them. The Lord keep us going on in simplicity, fulfilling as the hireling our day, till Christ shall come; and then every man shall have praise of God—"Praise of God"; be that our object, and may God knit all our hearts together thoroughly and eternally.