Holiness is a higher priority than happiness. It should rank higher in our scale of values than happiness, and maintaining its presence in our lives should be a matter of more pressing concern. The pursuit of holiness should be what we’re known for.
Through the gospel of Christ, we can have all that the word “life” was ever meant to convey. And the amazing thing is, the life that is available to us right now in Christ is, at its very best, only a foretaste of the fuller life that awaits us.
We say we’re reaching forward, but the pull of nostalgia can tug at our hearts so strongly that we catch ourselves trying to make the world like it used to be rather than the way it ought to be, as if “used to be” and “ought to be” were the same.
Is it really God we’re reaching forward to or are we preoccupied with lesser things? These questions aren’t just important; they are urgent as well. If we’re not busy about the Father’s business, our conduct is not going anywhere — it’s aimless.
We can take it for granted that God’s way will always work — it will always accomplish the purpose that He had in mind, whether that purpose is clear to us or not. So the question is not what will happen, but what our principles should be.
We are a “reaching people” who strain forward, eager to connect with something that can fill our needs. Foolishly, however, we reach for the wrong things, things that can’t satisfy us. But if we grasp the wrong things, we doom ourselves to death.
Satan loves to discourage us. He takes perverse delight in keeping us from taking even one step toward God. But he need not have the last word. We can determine that, God being our helper, we will summon the courage, self-respect, and energy to act!
In the end, the dividing line won’t be between those who had it easy and those who didn’t; it will be between those who decided to go to heaven and those who didn’t. When “every wind of doctrine” is gusting, it’s the set of our sails that matters.
Nothing gained by mere personality techniques will last. God sees behind our personalities, and most other people do too. Eventually the Law of the Farm will prevail: we will reap as we have sown. There is no short cut to any harvest worth having.
The important thing right now is not perfection but progress. As we work toward perfection as a goal, we’ll make more progress if we concentrate on taking the steps that are immediately before us. Those are always steps that we’re capable of taking.
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