How to Succeed in the Christian LifeTorrey, R. A. (Reuben Archer)
Religion
How to Succeed in the Christian Life
Torrey, R. A. (Reuben Archer)
Christian life -- Congregational authors
1. First, _many of us can go in our own persons_. Many of us ought to
go. God does not call every one of us to go as foreign missionaries,
but He does call many of us to go who are not responding to the call.
Every Christian should offer himself for the foreign field and leave the
responsibility of choosing him or refusing him to the all-wise One, God
Himself. No Christian has a right to stay at home until he has gone and
offered himself definitely to God for the foreign field. If you have
not done it before, do it to-day. Go alone with God and say, “Heavenly
Father, here I am, Thy property, purchased by the precious blood of
Christ. I belong to Thee. If Thou dost wish me in the foreign field, make
it clear to me and I will go.” Then keep watching for the leading of God.
God’s leading is clear leading. He is light and in Him is no darkness at
all (1 John 1: 5). If you are really willing to be led, He will make it
clear as day. Until He does make it clear as day, you need have no morbid
anxiety that perhaps you are staying at home when you ought to go to the
foreign field. If He wants you, He will make it clear as day in His own
way and time. If He does make it clear, then prepare to go step by step
as He leads you. And when His hour comes, go, no matter what it costs. If
He does not make it clear that you ought to go in your own person, stay
at home and do your duty at home and go in the other ways that will now
be told.
2. _We all can go, and all ought to go to the foreign field by our
gifts._ There are many who would like to go to the foreign field in
their own person, but whom God providentially prevents, but who are
still going in the missionaries they support or help to support. It is
possible for you to preach the Gospel in the remotest corners of the
earth by supporting or helping to support a foreign missionary or a
native worker in that place. Many who read this book are able financially
to support a foreign missionary out of their own pocket. If you are able
to do it, do it. If you are not able to support a foreign missionary,
you may be able to support a native helper—do it. You may be able to
support one missionary in Japan and another in China, and another in
India and another in Africa and another somewhere else—do it. Oh! the
joy of preaching the Gospel in lands that we shall never see with our
own eyes. How few in the church of Christ to-day realize their privilege
of preaching the Gospel and saving men and women and children in distant
lands by sending substitute missionaries to them, that is, by sending
some one that goes for you where you cannot go yourself. They could
not go but for your gifts by which they are supported and you could
not go but for them, by their going in your place. You may be able to
give but very little to foreign missions, but every little counts. Many
insignificant streams together make a mighty river. If you cannot be a
river, at least be a stream.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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