| The Secrets of a Beautiful Life |
Chapter 16 |
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There is a quenchless life within our decaying life. The beating heart, the breathing lungs, the wonderful mechanism of the body, do not make up the real life. There is something in us which thinks, feels, imagines, wills, chooses, and loves. The poet lies dead. His hand will write no more. But it was not the poet’s body that gave to the world the wonderful thoughts which have so wrought themselves into the world’s life. The hand now folded shaped the lines, but the marvelous power which inspired the thoughts in the lines was not in the hand. The hand will soon moulder in the dust, but the poet is immortal. The outward man has perished, but the inner life is beyond the reach of decay, safe in its immortality.
The inner spiritual life of a Christian is not subject to the changes that come upon his outer life. The body suffers; but if one is living in fellowship with Christ, one’s spiritual life is untouched by physical sufferings. The normal Christian life is one of constant, unchecked, uninterrupted progress. Unkindly conditions do not stunt it. Misfortunes do not mar it.
The inner growth of a Christian should be continuous. The renewal is said to be “day by day.” No day should be without its line. We should count that day lost which records no victory over some fault or secret sin; no new gain in self-disciple, in the culture of the spirit; no enlargement of the power of serving; no added feature of likeness to the Master. “The inward man is renewed day by day.”
This does not mean that all days are alike in their gain. There are special dates in every spiritual history which are memorable for ever for their special advance — days when decisive battles are fought, when faults are discovered and conquered, when new visions of Christ are granted, when the heart receives a new accession of Divine life, when one is led into a new field of service, when a new friend comes into the life, when one takes new responsibilities or enters into new relations.
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