BE STEADFAST | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 8, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 41.

BE STEADFAST.

AN even, persevering type of the Christian life is essential to religious happiness and usefulness. To be out of the way much of the time and to be vacillating between right and wrong is a very unsatisfactory state of heart and mind. Some people are in such a tangle as to their relation to the church and to the world that they are in real misery. They find little comfort in their religion because there is so little of it; and they cannot enjoy the world because of the restraints of their profession and church relation.

Be steadfast in faith. Faith as a principle can be so strengthened and made a fixity in one's character as to become immovable. Men become Christians by believing; they become doubters by doubting. Our perception of truth is governed largely by our attitude toward it when presented to us. To doubt when it requires an effort and costs a struggle not to believe, blunts the keener sense of perception concerning truth, and cultivates a habit of doubting. Steadfastness in faith tends to intensify our power of perception of truth, and hence makes apprehension of truth easier and removes the individual farther and farther from doubt.

Be steadfast in service. The responsibility of a definite assignment of work is a thing of vital importance to any Christian. To be continuously free from such responsibility can not but prove seriously detrimental to faith and grace in the heart. They who are pressed most by practical church work make the greatest strides toward stalwart manhood in Christ Jesus. Close observers well know that it is a hazardous thing for any man to throw off service and fall back to the inactive ranks. Many who have arbitrarily done so have soon grown cold and have lost almost all trace of interest in the welfare of the church and in their own salvation.

Inactivity in the church is not a friend to grace. Idleness brings poverty of soul as well as poverty of purse. Work! work! is the cry of the faithful. We are not saved by works, but it is doubtful whether we can be saved without service.—Evangelical Messenger.