Building Christian Character
So it is in the Christian life. God's truth has cut us out rough stones from the great quarry of the world. He accepts us in the Beloved as fitted for certain places in that great heavenly temple on the conditions that we can stand the character-forming. One temptation resisted does not form the habit of resisting that temptation, unless it is specially aggravated; two does not form the habit; but as we withstand again and again, the victory is won, the character is formed, and the temptation is no longer a temptation. So the covetous man by constantly exercising liberality through the grace of Christ, always of course, forever overcomes his covetousness and forms a liberal character. It is just as true in every other direction. The great builder is our Lord Jesus Christ (Zech. 6:12, 13); the agents are his word and Spirit. Therefore we "commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified."