Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Excellence Comes From Effort




















Young man, young woman, you desire to be as nearly perfect as may be possible. So be it! God help you and accomplish in you all the good pleasure of his will. But do not vainly dream that the life which you admire in others will readily be reproduced in yourself. Excellence comes of effort; they labored and watched, and prayed; and trusted in the Lord, or they never would have become what they were, and be assured there is no royal road for you, you too must wrestle hard ere victory will be won. Let the ideal be before your mind, but remember it is but an ideal, and grace will be needed to work in you “to will and to do of the Lord’s good pleasure.” To will is present with you even now, but perhaps ere long you will have to say, “How to perform that which I would I find not.”

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Girding On The Harness," delivered August 6, 1874. Image by ND Strupler on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Indeed we all have to work at becoming want God wants us to be, there are times when you don't have the desire to changed into what God wanyts of you but then ask for grace to desire to change and you will soon be back on the god to His will