CONTENTS I. BEGINNING RIGHT 11 II. THE OPEN CONFESSION OF CHRIST 19 III. ASSURANCE OF SALVATION 22 IV. RECEIVING THE HOLY SPIRIT 29 V. LOOKING UNTO JESUS 35 VI. CHURCH MEMBERSHIP 41 VII. BIBLE STUDY 46 VIII. DIFFICULTIES IN THE BIBLE 64 IX. PRAYER 74 X. WORKING FOR CHRIST 82 XI. FOREIGN MISSIONS 90 XII. COMPANIONS 98 XIII. AMUSEMENTS 103 XIV. PERSECUTION 108 XV. GUIDANCE 113 INTRODUCTION I have for years felt the need of a book to put in the hands of those beginning the Christian life that would tell them just how to make a complete success of this new life upon which they were entering. I could find no such book, so I have been driven to write one. This book aims to tell the young convert just what he most needs to know. I hope that pastors and evangelists and other Christian workers may find it a good book to put in the hands of young converts. I hope that it may also prove a helpful book to many who have long been Christians but have not made that headway in the Christian life that they long for. How to Succeed in the Christian Life I BEGINNING RIGHT There is nothing more important in the Christian life than beginning right. If we begin right we can go on right. If we begin wrong the whole life that follows is likely to be wrong. If any one who reads these pages has begun wrong, it is a very simple matter to begin over again and begin right. What the right beginning in the Christian life is we are told in John 1: 12, “But as many as RECEIVED HIM, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.” The right way to begin the Christian life is by receiving Jesus Christ. To any one who receives Him, He at once gives power to become a child of God. If the reader of this book should be the wickedest man on earth and should at this moment receive Jesus Christ, that very instant he would become a child of God. God says so in the most unqualified way in the verse quoted above. No one can become a child of God in any other way. No man, no matter how carefully he has been reared, no matter how well he has been sheltered from the vices and evils of this world, is a child of God until he receives Jesus Christ. We are “sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3: 26, R. V.), and in no other way.