Walk in All Humility
31
Try it, brethren in Africa. There is no growth in aiming at a low
standard, but there is required persevering, untiring effort if you would
succeed in winning souls to Christ. Satan and all his hosts, allied with
evil men, will oppose the work, and you cannot meet this opposition
in your own feeble strength. The Captain of the Lord’s host alone
can win for you the victory. You cannot be at peace and harmony
among yourselves if you have no well concentrated efforts to push the
triumphs of the cross.
If we are engaged in contentions and faultfinding when we ought to
be doing our best for the Master, how can we expect God to bring souls
into the truth, and trust them to our unfaithful, unchristlike guidance?
Seek the Lord with all your heart; die to self. God’s people must be
a unit, and the work must begin in our hearts. The work must begin
in our own families. The true witness says, “I know thy works.” You
may be constantly imbibing the Spirit of Christ.
If you cannot show the power of the grace of Christ in your charac-
ter at home, you will fail to show wisdom in the church, and cannot be
entrusted with the care of souls newly come to the faith, who are babes
in Christ, who need to be fed with milk, and not with strong meat.
You may be inclined to hold before the awakened soul the strong
arguments which establish our faith, which are hard for them to under-
stand. But this will not be the right way to do. Just talk the simplest
lessons of faith, for even learned persons are hungry to know the
ABC of what it means to be a Christian and how they can find Christ,
how they can gain Christ. This is the food for which the churches all
through the ages are starving.
Please bear in mind, if the minds of believers are not appropriating
to themselves the promises of God, and receiving by faith the higher
influences, emanating from heaven, they are appropriating the lower
influences. Every moral action leaves its imprint upon the moral
character. The conversation at the table, the conversation at the fireside,
the spirit that pervades the family circle, testifies whether we are
faithful in our daily duties. Through the constant culture of correct
habits we are becoming qualified for the upbuilding of the church,
[35]
fitted to feed the sheep and the lambs, and prepared, through a faithful
discharge of every duty to hear the heavenly benediction, “Well done,
good and faithful servant;enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”