When are Christians most honorable?#
By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:35)
The strength of Christians is the honor of the church.
When they are inflamed with the love of God, and live by a lively working faith, and set alight by the profits and the honor of this world, and love one another fervently, and can bear and heartily forgive a wrong, and suffer joyfully for the cause of Christ, and study to do good, and walk inoffensively and harmlessly in the world, are ready to be servants of all men for their good, becoming all things in order to win them to Christ, and yet abstaining from the appearance of evil, and seasoning all their actions with a sweet mixture of prudence, humility, zeal, and heavenly mindedness - oh, what an honor are such to their profession! What an ornament to the Church; and how serviceable to God and man.
Men would sooner believe that the gospel is from heaven, if they saw more effects of it upon the hearts and lives of those who profess it.
Baxter's Last Word:
The world is better to read the nature of religion in a man's life than in the Bible.#
#Today's SoulSnack is an unedited extract from 'The Reformed Pastor' by Richard Baxter. (1615 -1691)