PERSEVERANCE by Laura C. Nourse

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 29, 1877

PERSEVERANCE

By Laura C. Nourse

On no work or effort of our lives do we so much need to keep before our minds the necessity for constant and persistent endeavor as in the formation and perfection of true Christian character. This must be the work, not of a day or a year, but of a lifetime.

No great achievement in the arts or sciences, no signal success in the common walks of life, comes but as the outgrowth of patient perseverance and earnest labor; and have we any right to expect that this great gift of eternal life will be thrust upon us, with no work or effort of our own? that the gates of Heaven will open at our bidding, and we be permitted to walk composedly in without opposition or conflict?

“Work out your salvation with fear and trembling,” is the command of our Lord; and to God’s true children this command has no idle significance. It means literal work, hard, unceasing toil; but it is work which brings with it a recompense, and is followed by its sure reward; and we have the sweet assurance,

“That lovingly performed, Each lowly duty Adds to the inner strength And outer beauty.”

Every temptation to do wrong steadfastly resisted, every sin which we diligently strive to put away, each trial patiently endured, adds to the beauty and symmetry of our Christian life. Even sorrow and affliction may be the instruments in the hands of God to perfect in us the Christian graces. “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” Jesus himself was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”

There is another phase of this work of which we are too apt to lose sight. We must not expect success will always crown even our most earnest endeavors. God suffers us to be tempted, to show us our weakness and the necessity of constant watchfulness, or perchance to help us to be more charitable toward those around us, whom in our Pharisaical self-righteousness we have heartlessly condemned. New associations, different surroundings, develop in our natures capabilities of sin of which we never dreamed, and we find ourselves weak where, in our proud self-reliance, we supposed we were strongest.

In this way, God tests us, and reveals to us our true characters, and seeks to impress upon our minds the important truth, “without me, ye can do nothing.” But all this need not, should not, discourage us. Leaving the past in the hands of a merciful God, let us resolutely press forward. Let the mistakes and failures of each day but serve to draw us nearer to the great source of all strength, and incite us to more earnest endeavors, to greater watchfulness, and more fervent prayer, and awaken in our hearts a more intense longing for the life beyond, for a home in the glorious kingdom of our God, where sin shall no more have dominion over us.

And as we work, and pray for ourselves, let us not forget to work and pray for others. All around us are sorrowing hearts. God’s word is full of comfort. The world is running over with sin and wickedness. Let “No compromise,” be our motto; and faithfully and well let us strive to do the work before us, that when Christ shall appear, we may hear from his lips the “well and faithfully done,” and rejoice in the glad assurance of eternal victory.

LAURA C. NOURSE.