Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 October 1875 — Look for Results. [ARTICLE]

Look for Results.

A great deal of the ordinary work of life is done without any idea of the dignity or the results bf labor. The consequence is that life to many is painfully burdensome and altogether aimless. They look for nothing ahd they fail to achieve anything. It each one would set before him some end to be attained his life would be much more joyous and his success much greater. Many are poor or in want in old age who might have had a handsome competency if in their earlier years they had set before them a comfortable home to be secured by industry and prudent management. Not a few endowed with great capabilities and enjoying peculiar advantages have failed in the struggle of life because they cherished no high aim and sought no particular result. The lives of all such can only be failures. The same mistake is very often made in the Christian life, to great injury of ourselves aud also to the hindrance of the progress of the cause of Christr Our faith, activity, self-denial and perseverance will be in proportion to what we expect to accomplish in ourselves or for others. If we do not look for greater love, stronger faith, more deadness to the world, increased likeness to Christ, and enlarged influence for good upon others, all our prayers and efforts toward our own spiritual improvement must necessarily be to a greater or less extent formal, cold and lifeless, and we will remain from year to year without any decided growth in grace. This is no doubt one cause for the low state of piety so often deplored, and the removal of which is so difficult when it has taken possession of individuals dr churches. There may be a little strength, the name of Christ may not have been denied, but they are weak and sickly when they should be strong and rich in grace. Parents may continue to worship God in their families and to instruct children from year to year, without expecting them to be brought to repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no yearning anxiety for them, no wrestling with God in their behalf. It is not strange that the children remain indifferent, or turn aside to folly and sin. Teachers in the Sabbath-school can appear before their classes, and pass over the same round of services from Sabbath to Sabbath, without any definite object or having any anxiety that their pupils may receive the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. That such teaching should fail to accomplish anything toward the conversion of the young cannot be placed among the things that are inexplicable. And it is not impossible for ministers of the Gospel to make this great mistake—to preach from Sabbath to Sabbath, not error, but truth, and yet fail to see any favorable results of their labors, simply because they have not in the exercise of faith aimed to accomplish by the power of the Holy Ghost the salvation of sinners and the sanctification of believers. Let no one be surprised that such a minister is a barren one; it cannot be otherwise. No others have such encouragement to expect results as have Christian workers in the family, in the Sabbath-school, among all classes and conditions of men and in the pulpit. The word of God is quick and powerful; the prayer of faith is always heard; nothing is too hard for the Holy Spirit to overcome; the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ Jesus. Why then should we doubt? Why should we not pray and labor for great things for God and His church? And why should we not expect great things.— Presbyterian Banner.