1St. Renounce, once and for all, the legal thought that your acceptance before God depends on anything you are, or can be, or anything you do, or can do. Christ, and not your condition, or your conduct, is the ground of your acceptance. God accepts Christ for you, and accepts you in Christ. (Rom. 4:25; 5:1, 2; 8:1, 2; Eph. 1:6, 7; Col. 1:12-14.)
You're not worthy-oh, no! Christ alone
Is righteous and true in God's sight,
But you are in Him, who for sin did atone,
In whom is found all God's delight.
2nd. Remember that you are now a Christian-Christ's one, and as such seek to adorn "that beautiful name by which you are called." (Acts 11:26; Eph. 3:15; James 2:7.) What is a Christian? Someone has said, "A Christian is C-H-R-1-S-T-Christ in full; and I-A-N (I am nothing)-me in initial." Look up, then, for grace to be nothing, and to make Christ everything.
O to be but emptier, lowlier,
Mean, unnoticed, and unknown,
And to God, a vessel holier,
Filled with Christ, and Christ alone!
3rd. Be careful to have "a good conscience" -a conscience instructed by Scripture-pure and sensitive. Let conscience be like some finely polished mirror, that is dimmed by the slightest breath of the tempter. If you sin, confess' at once, not as a sinner to God, but as a child to the Father. (Acts 24:16; Heb. 13:18; 1 John 1:9; 2:1, 2.)
Speak a shade more kindly
Than you have before;
Pray a little oftener,
Serve a little more;
Cling a little closer
To the Father's love;
Life will then grow liker
To the life above!
4th. Be as lenient to the faults of others as you are hard on your own. Remember those three gracious F's-Forbear; Forgive; Forget. If you detect the smallest grain of malice in your heart toward another, do not rest while it is there. You cannot be happy with the Lord till it is gone. (Rom. 12; Col. 3:12-15; Phil. 2; Eph. 4:1-3; 31-32.)
O, what a little thing can turn
A heavy heart from sigh to song!
A smile can make the world less stern;
A word can cause the soul to burn
With glow of heaven all night long.
5th. Keep a large heart as you tread the narrow way. By a large heart I mean a heart that takes in "all saints." The path of faithfulness amid the ruins becomes increasingly narrow and exclusive, but a heart filled with the love of Christ expands, and becomes increasingly large and inclusive. (Look up the term "all saints," as found in the Epistles.)
Have you had a kindness shown?
Pass it on.
'Twas not given for thee alone-
Pass it on.
Let it travel down the years,
Let it wipe another's tears,
Till in heaven the deed appears
Pass it on.
6th. In any difficulty, let the Lord be your first resource. You have no wiser, kinder, nor stronger Friend. Whatever, then, be the care-be it in the home circle, the school circle, the business circle, the Church circle, the world circle, or the tiny circle of your own soul-go to Him about it. He delights to enter into our little concerns, and the simpler our faith the better it pleases him. (Phil. 4:6; 1 Peter 5:6, 7.)
No human voice may cheer thee,
No earthly listener hear thee;
But, oh, one Friend is near thee,
The kindest and the best;
Whose smile can banish sadness,
Whose presence fills with gladness
The solitary breast.
7th. Do not be content with praying, but grow in the school of secret prayer. It is a fact that the more you pray, the more you want to pray; and the less you pray, the less you want to pray. Depend upon it, when you feel least inclined for prayer, then your soul is most in need of it. Turn everything into prayer, and soon prayer will be to you a state as well as an act. (Matt. 26:41; James 5:13-16; 1 Thess. 5:17. (Luke presents Christ seven times as alone in prayer.)
God's ships of treasure sail upon a sea
Of boundless love, of mercy infinite,
To change their course, retard their onward way.
Nor wind nor wave hath might.
Prayer is the tide for which the vessels wait
Ere they can come to port; but if it be
The tide is low, then how can'st thou expect
The treasure-ship to see?
(To be continued.)