Chapter 268—The Christian’s Badge
Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that
we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.
Ephesians
3:20
.
The Lord is waiting to manifest through His people His grace and power.
But He requires that those who engage in His service shall keep their minds
ever directed to Him. Every day they should have time for reading the Word
of God and for prayer....
Individually we are to walk and talk with God; then the sacred influence
of the gospel of Christ in all its preciousness will appear in our lives.
There is an eloquence far more powerful than the eloquence of words in
the quiet, consistent life of a pure, true Christian. What a man is has more
influence than what he says.
The officers who were sent to Jesus came back with the report that never
man spoke as He spoke. But the reason for this was that never man lived as
He lived. Had His life been other than it was, He could not have spoken as
He did. His words bore with them a convincing power, because they came
from a heart pure and holy, full of love and sympathy, benevolence and truth.
It is our own character and experience that determine our influence upon
others. In order to convince others of the power of Christ’s grace, we must
know its power in our own hearts and lives. The gospel we present for the
saving of souls must be the gospel by which our own souls are saved. Only
through a living faith in Christ as a personal Saviour is it possible to make
our influence felt in a skeptical world. If we would draw sinners out of the
swift-running current, our own feet must be firmly set upon the Rock, Christ
Jesus.
The badge of Christianity is not an outward sign, not the wearing of a
cross or a crown, but it is that which reveals the union of man with God.
By the power of His grace manifested in the transformation of character the
world is to be convinced that God has sent His Son as its Redeemer. No other
influence that can surround the human soul has such power as the influence
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