The best way to pray is to plead God's promises and Christ's Blood. Trust the great Promiser. Reverse your course of life, seek God Himself through Christ Jesus. Prayer is dealing with God. The best prayer comes to grips with the God of mercy. Prayer is to ask of God, as a child asks of its father. The best of all is that Jesus loves me. Human nature wants to save face and reputation. Be patient under persecution, smile under ridicule, yield your rights. Christ has made Atonement for my sins. The bloody death of Christ saved my soul. The matchless, glorious Victim yielded up His life to put away my sins. Be ever ready to obey the Holy Spirit's gentlest monitions, the distinct movements and leadings of the Holy Spirit. Be very tender to the touches of God.
As a Christian witness, be prepared to be rejected, repelled, and ridiculed. Obedience to Christ humbles me, lowers me in man's esteem, makes me the subject of ridicule, the object of scoffing, and brings contempt upon my name. If you witness for Christ, you will be elbowed out of society. Your name will be besmeared with calumny and slander. United with the people of God, avow publicly your faith in the Precious Blood. The world may honor you with their ridicule. The Gospel will expose you to opposition, sneering opposition. Acknowledge Christ's Deity, trust to His Precious Blood. No scorn is too great for sin, sin deserves to be loathed, to be treated with contempt, to be abhorred and forsaken. Turn away from your sins with loathing.
If you bring up Jesus, the world will surely sneer at you, and bring up all your past life against you, all your former habits. They will utter a cutting jest, make a jest of your faith, and become cruel and violent. Read, mark, learn, meditate, inwardly digest the words of God. True faith highly esteems Christ. *Luke 9:47-48* The Son of God died for guilty men, the Sinless One for the sinful to bring them to God - this the priceless fact of the Scriptures. If you continue to bear witness to the Gospel, you will lose your worldly status and income, and you will lose the approbation and applause of men. Don't die in your sins - Hell is the ultimate horror of this universe.
Jesus was mocked, spit upon, scourged, and crucified. His groans, gory shoulders, five wounds, cruel scorn, and great passion is Salvation. Believe that Christ can save you, and trust to His blood, love and power. Lay your deadly burden of sin down at Jesus' feet. God has blessed us, therefore we will bless Him. If you think little of what Christ has done for you, you will do very little for Him. If you realize His great mercy to you, you will be greatly grateful to the gracious Incarnate God. Jesus was good, honest, humble, and courageous.
Rest yourself upon the words of Jesus, His promises are the best pillows for living and dying heads. Has the Gospel changed your character? Has the Gospel renewed you in the spirit of your mind? Does the Gospel cheer and comfort you, and help you to live and die?
The highest good and the best blessing that men can know is the forgiveness of sins. Trust Christ at once, and then get to work for Him. Work for Jesus and be with Him at the same time. Labor to bring men to repentance through faith in Christ Jesus. The best help you can give men is to preach the Gospel to them. Obedience is the best humility, laying yourself at the feet of Jesus and make your will active only when you now it is God's will. This is to be truly humble. Do not be fretting and fearful over Monday and trials of the week. Be still and wait for God's help and guidance. Expect difficulty, loss, and ridicule when you testify for Jesus, face it all for His dear sake.
If you set up your righteousness in opposition to Christ's Righteousness, you will only increase your sins. You can be damned by your own righteousness, as surely as your unrighteousness. The dogs of this world will bark at you for you are strangers here. In the workshop, the Bible and Christ are despised. When men go astray, they are like a flock of sheep. If one sheep gets through a fence, all the rest go after it. If one sheep jumps over the edge of a bridge into a river, the others will follow after it, and all are destroyed. Be careful who you follow.
If you love Jesus Christ, then out with your avowal of that love. Don't go to heaven in disguise. Walk in broad daylight as a soldier of Christ. The carnal mind has contempt for Christ's claims. The Man Christ Jesus died on Calvary, and rose again from the dead, He went to Heaven, and will come again to judge all men at the last great day. The Gospel always brings sneers and frowns. The core of Christianity is the Atoning Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Charity and Purity are the two garments of true Christianity. *James 1:27*
Men search for objections to the Gospel, so they will have an excuse for rejecting Christ and continue on loving their sins. Make up your mind, nail your colors to the mast, keep to the right course, be settled in your heart by the grace of God. Be kind but firm, be generous, frank, and noble. We need firmness of purpose adorned with gentleness of manner. Putting off the old man requires self-denial. If you are a soul winner, be ready for a bad name, for loss of friendships, but stand fast by Him who bought you with His Precious Blood. Get soaked through and through with divine truth. The better men are, the more they will esteem Christ. Jesus must increase. Public approbation and human applause are nothing to the Christian. Cut your sinful connections, quit your evil companions. Don't let the smiles or frowns of man control your actions. You are to be a witness *Acts 1:8*, that is all, a simple communicator of Christ's truth.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, that is, the highest wisdom. Men will either believe supposition and speculation from human imagination, or revelation and inspiration from the mind of God found in the Holy Scriptures. If you long for God a little, He will be absent long; but if you long for Him much, God will soon come to you. The stakes are high, the Scriptures are clear, trust your poor guilty soul to Jesus at once.
