February 15

Practical Christian living

“And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:23).

Entire sanctification means the sanctification of everything. The sanctification, for example, of the daily work; that is, doing it to the Lord, and therefore doing it as well as we can. If a plowman be entirely sanctified, he will plow a straight furrow—or at least try his best to do so. If he be a mason, he will put no bad work into his walls; if a doctor, he will care more about curing his patients than about getting larger fees; if he be a minister of religion, he will strive to serve the people of his charge to the utmost of his ability. I do not believe in the entire sanctification of any man who does his daily work in a slovenly way, who keeps his books so badly that he contracts debts without knowing whether he will ever be able to pay them, and spends other people’s money rather than his own. Entire sanctification means that a man will be perfectly upright in all his business transactions, even in buying and selling horses, and in paying income tax.—Benjamin Hellier.


Are we not princes, we who stand
As heirs beside the Throne?
We who can call the Promised Land
Our heritage, our own,
And answer to no less command
Than God’s, and His alone?

Shall we upon such titles leave
The taint of sin and shame?
Shall we the children of a King
Who hold so grand a claim,
Tarnish by any meaner thing,
The glory of our name?

You may safely trust those who make conscience of the meanest work; who, in kindling a fire or sweeping a floor, have an eye uplifted to the glory of God; who ennoble life’s humblest employment by aiming at a noble end; and who address themselves to their business in the high and holy belief that when duty—however humble it may be—is well done, God is glorified.
—Dr. Guthrie.

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