Scope and Function of a Christian Life
H. W. Beecher. Ephesians 6:11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 1. Men are called by religion to a personal reformation, and then to the reformation of the whole world in which they live. You are to carry Christ's spirit into every relation of life, and to become a witness, and a martyr, if need be, in it. A little child, beginning to love Christ, and desiring to witness for Christ, comes home to its unconverted parents, and to brothers and sisters that are wilful and wayward, and seeks there to carry out the law of love. Its temper, quite infirm, is often lost. Alas, that of all the things that we lose, nothing is found so certainly again as our temper! The little child comes home, and its temper is often disturbed, often stirred up; and still, it means to be a witness for Christ. And it says in its little heart, "I do love Christ; and I mean that everything I do shall please Him." It has read, "In honour preferring one another"; and it attempts, in the household, to prefer the happiness of its brothers and sisters. It refuses to join in the little deceits that belong to them. It refuses to conceal, when questioned, their little peculations. It comes to spiteful grief in consequence. And the little child is not old enough to know anything about the great laws of society and the great laws of nature. Just converted, it is undertaking to live so that the best part of itself shall govern itself; and then it is undertaking so that, in its little companionships, the best part of it shall all the time rule in its conduct. Now, no child can undertake that without having the epitome of the experience of every Christian in the whole world. 2. Religion must not be selfish - not even if it be the selfishness of the highest quality. We have no right to be Christians simply on the ground that we shall save our souls. We shall save our souls; but to come into religion as a mere soul insurance is selfishness. We have no right to go into religion merely because we should thus gain joy. The man that enters into religion must follow God. And what thought He, when He took the crown, every beam of which was brighter than the shining of a thousand suns, and laid it by? What thought He when, disrobing Himself of power, taste, and faculty, He bowed His head, and, trailing through the sky, became a man, and as a man humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross? The most odious and reputation-blasting death that man's ingenuity had developed - all this had combined at the centre point of the cross, as the sign and symbol of degradation; and that was the death that He chose, that He might identify Himself with men, and not be ashamed to call them brethren. "I am going to follow the meek and lowly Jesus by cutting my acquaintance with the vulgar cares of the dirty world. I am going to be a select Christian, and seclude myself from these things." Can you, and be a follower of Christ? Religion means work. Religion means work in a dirty world. Religion means peril - blows given, but blows taken as well. Religion means transformation. The world is to be cleaned by somebody; and you are not called of God if you are ashamed to scour and scrub. I believe that the day is yet to come when all the machineries of society will be controlled by truth, by purity, by sublime duty. I call you to be soldiers in that great warfare that is to bring to pass this victory. (H. W. Beecher.) Parallel Verses KJV: Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. WEB: Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.