Right Living by M. J. C.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 24, 1870

Right Living.

By M. J. C.

No one claims to live right; hence we conclude no one does so live, and that because no one does, no one can. Consequently we lay down our watch, and if we make any efforts they are so weak and faint that Satan smiles in triumph. He is sure of his prey when the professed Christian pays so little heed to his doings, as to be unable to tell whether he is denying self or yielding to self. Ah! where is the watching! We must watch. If we want to labor for the Lord, watch for opportunities. When another spoke to you in such a fruitful way of a mere trifle, and you with such an effort kept back the quick self-justifying reply, and answered instead, calmly and kindly, was there not something gained in the work of dying to self? True, it was not your own strength that accomplished the little. Thank your Heavenly Father for the strength that enabled you to die to self in this little trial, and when another comes, trust and pray.

When the children fret and try you, and you in haste and anger reprove, do you not give way to self? Yes; you know it, if you will only pause in your haste and consider. Here was work to do for the Lord, but you failed, failed to watch and pray, and self-conquered. Oh self! how easily it comes in. Before we know it, self has the ascendancy. "It is the daily dying to self in the little transactions of life that makes us overcomers." Here is the secret, in the little things. There is a vast sermon in the little sentence I have quoted above. Study it, act upon it, and then with God's help you will have the unspeakable joy of being an overcomer.

M. J. C.