| Things to Live For |
Chapter 6 |
Page 5 |
We need the help which we can get from the church. It is never easy to live in this world, even at the best. In the quietest day there are cares which tend to fret us and break our peace. Business has its temptations; and it is hard always to live out Christ’s teachings in our shops, stores, and offices. Home life, with its household tasks and its cares and anxieties, wears heavily on the heart’s sensitiveness. To many of us every common day brings discouragements, disheartenments, and ofttimes sorrows. But it is possible to get into our soul in God’s house such inspiring hopes, such uplifting joys, that all the week, in the dust and toil, heavenly songs shall sing in our bosom. We rob our life of blessings which belong to it by right when we fail to use the privileges which the church brings within our reach. Too many of us fail to understand this. Some Christian people set such small store by their church that they are kept from its services for the lightest reasons. Others fail to get from its services and its fellowships the diving cheer, inspiration, and strength which they might get. The possible helpfulness in a true church relationship is beyond estimate.
We do not make the most and the best possible of our life in the work of Christ. The possibilities of Christian service are incalculable. For example, the influence which a true home exerts on its inmates is beyond measure. A Christian man who had long been engaged in useful service tells of a visit to his old childhood home. He was put to sleep in a spare room. He opened a closet door, and a scene was before him which brought a rush of tears to his eyes. An old chair stood there, and before it lay a cushion in which were deep knee prints. Evidently this was some one’s closet of prayer. Instantly the truth flashed upon him. He was looking into the secret sanctuary of his beloved mother, where she had prayed all her children into the kingdom of Christ. He saw now the place where the grace was invoked by intercession which had brought the power of Christ into his own heart. What a hold place it was!
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