June 29

Saved to serve

“This woman was full of good works and almsdeeds which she did” (Acts 9:36).
“Every one that doeth righteousness is born of him” (1 John 2:29).

A great many professed Christians have no other idea of religion than that it is the means of getting to Heaven when they die. As to doing anything for God while they live, it does not enter into their plans. I tell you, my brethren, I do not believe there is one in five hundred of such professors that will reach Heaven; for there is a magnanimity in true religion that is above all such contemptible meanness.
—L. Beecher.


Oh, turn me, mold me, mellow me for use;
Pervade my being with Thy vital force,
That this else inexpansive life of mine
May become eloquent and full of power,
Impregnated with life and strength divine.
Put the bright torch of Heaven into my hand
That I may carry it aloft
And win the eye of weary wanderers here below,
To guide their feet into the paths of peace.
I cannot raise the dead
Nor from this soil pluck precious dust,
Nor bid the sleeper wake,
Nor still the storm, nor bend the lightning back,
Nor muffle up the thunder,
Nor bid the chains fall from off creation’s long enfettered limbs.

But I can live a life that tells on other lives
And makes this world less full of anguish and of pain;
A life that, like the pebble dropped upon the sea,
Sends its wide circle to a hundred shores.
May such a life be mine!
Creator of true life, Thyself the life Thou givest,
Give Thyself, that Thou mayest dwell in me, and I in Thee.
—Horatius Bonar.

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