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How to Be a Success, December 24
For all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee.
1
Chronicles 29:14
.
We hope you may be prospered of God. If we have His care and His
approval, we shall make a success wherever we are and in whatever we may
engage. Without the blessing of God, any amount of prosperity will fail to
be a success. Our first anxiety should be to secure God as our friend. “Let
him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall
make peace with me” (
Isaiah 27:5
).
Do not make it a business to serve yourselves and become indifferent
in regard to the claims of God upon you. You are His property. Have fixed
principles. Consider Jesus has bought you at an infinite cost. Your thoughts
should be kept pure; they are the Lord’s. Give them to Him. We can merit
nothing from God. We can give Him nothing which is not His own. Will we
keep back from God what is His own? Do not rob God and pawn His time,
His talents, and His strength with the world. He asks your affections. Give
them to Him. They are His own. He asks your time, moment by moment:
give it to Him. It is His own. He asks your intellect: give it to Him. It is His
own.
Remember the words of the inspired apostle, “Ye are not your own. For
ye are bought with a price” (
1 Corinthians 6:19, 20
). You are bought, ...even
if you perish. The Lord wants His own property. When we have given to
God soul, body, and spirit; when we have kept appetite under the control
of enlightened conscience, and wrestled against every lust, showing that we
consider each organ as God’s property, intended for His service; when all our
affections move in harmony with the Lord’s mind, fastening on objects “which
are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God” (
Colossians 3:1
)—
then we have given the Lord His own. O God, “all things come of thee, and
of thine own have we given thee” (
1 Chronicles 29:14
)....
On no consideration live for yourselves alone. There are those who
ever need the help you can give them. Jesus gave Himself for us. What a
condescension! Let us deny self and bless others. Glorify God by choosing
His way, His will. He will be your wise counselor and your fast, unchanging
Friend.—
Letter 23, December 24, 1873
, to Edson and Emma White.
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