August 13

With a few on the right road

“Then all the disciples . . . fled” (Matt. 26:56).
“Many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him” (John 6:66).

“What everybody says must be false,” says an old proverb, and I do not dispute it. What most people say is, I think, most often false. And that is true about conduct, as well as about opinion. It is very unsafe in regard to matters of opinion; it is even more unsafe in regard to matters of conduct. That there are many on a road is no sign that the road is a right one. It is rather an argument the other way, looking at the gregariousness of human nature, and how much people like to save themselves the trouble of thinking and decision, and to run in ruts. So the fact that, if you are going to be Christlike Christians you will be in the minority, is a reason for being such.
—Alexander Maclaren.

“I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set themselves against me round about” (Psa. 3:6).

When you are in the right, stand up for it, no matter if the heavens fall; if you lose every friend you have, God will raise up others who will be better.
—D. L. Moody.

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to the light I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right—stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.
—Abraham Lincoln.

At home you can never know what it is to be alone—absolutely alone, without one friend, with everyone looking on you with curiosity, with contempt, with suspicion or with dislike. Thus to learn what it is to be despised and rejected of men, thus to learn what it is to have nowhere to lay your head, and then to have the love of Jesus applied to your heart by the Holy Spirit—to know more of Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death. The flesh would say, “Use not this prayer, you know not what you ask,”—but “God is love.”
—Hudson Taylor.

Our greatest trials, struggles, and victories are experienced—alone.

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