How to Live a Holy Life

Charles Ebert Orr

How to Live a Holy Life

EAN 8596547178811

DigiCat, 2022

Contact: [email protected]

Table of Contents

PREFACE.

INTRODUCTION.

THE WAY THE SAIL IS SET.

HOW TO LIVE THE CHRIST-LIFE.

THE BIBLE WAY.

THE HEAVENLY WAY.

KEEPING THE COMMANDMENTS.

BE DOERS OF THE WORD.

WHO ARE THE WISE?

KEEPING THE COMMANDMENTS A TEST OF LOVE.

THE BLESSEDNESS OF OBEYING GOD'S WORD.

THE RELATIONSHIP WE HAVE WITH CHRIST THROUGH OBEDIENCE.

OUR LIFE IS TO ADORN THE GOSPEL.

THE CHRISTIAN AN EPISTLE OF CHRIST.

HOW WE MAY LIVE AS THE BIBLE READS.

HOW TO KEEP THE WORD OF GOD IN THE HEART.

MAN THE VEHICLE FOR EXHIBITING GOD'S PERFECTIONS.

SOME USE TO JESUS.

GODLY LIVING.

SOMETHING TO DO.

SPIRITUAL DRYNESS.

PRAYER.

KEEP THE ROOTS WATERED.

UNDER THE FIG-TREE.

SHUT THE DOOR.

ALONE WITH GOD.

PRAYERFUL REMEMBRANCE.

HE CARETH FOR THEE.

CONSIDER THE LILIES.

SORROWFUL YET ALWAYS REJOICING.

GENTLENESS.

TENDERNESS.

THE CHRISTIAN WALK.

THE CHRISTIAN IS TO WALK CIRCUMSPECTLY.

THE CHRISTIAN'S WALK A WALK WITH GOD.

THE LATEST IMPROVED.

LUKEWARMNESS.

STEADFASTNESS.

HOW TO UNDERSTAND GOD'S WILL.

A VIEW OF JESUS.

DEVOTION TO GOD.

THE GOLDEN RULE OF LIFE.

TIMELINESS IN DOING GOOD.

THE WARFARE OF A CHRISTIAN LIFE.

LIVE BY FAITH.

A VALUABLE LEGACY.

SOME SCRIPTURES FOR DAILY PRACTISE.

PREFACE.

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If the reading of this little book encourages any on their pilgrim way; if it arouses them to greater diligence; if it creates in them a stronger desire to live more like Christ; if it gives them a better understanding of how to live,—this poor servant of the Lord will be fully rewarded for all his labor.

Even among the children of God in this beautiful gospel light of the evening there is an inclination, on the part of a few at least, and maybe more than a few, to slow down and not be their very best and most active for God. We hope that this little book will arouse such ones to greater zeal and earnestness. Diligence, yea, constant application, is the secret of success in all manner of life and especially in the Christian life.

This volume is written for all those who desire to please God with a well -spent life. It is sent forth in Jesus' name, with a prayer—that God bless and help both the reader and the writer to live life at its very best and fulfil the purpose of God concerning them.

Your humble servant in Christian love,

The Author.

INTRODUCTION.

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We have only one life to live, only one. Think of this for a moment. Here we are in this world of time making the journey of life. Each day we are farther from the cradle and nearer the grave. Solemn thought. See the mighty concourse of human lives; hear their heavy tread in their onward march. Some are just beginning life's journey; some are midway up the hill, some have reached the top, and some are midway down the western slope. But where are we all going? Listen, and you will hear but one answer—Eternity. Beyond the fading, dying gleams of the sunset of life lies a boundless, endless ocean called Eternity. Thitherward you and I are daily traveling.

Time is like a great wheel going its round. On and on it goes. Some are stepping on and some are stepping off. But where are these latter stepping? Into eternity. See that old man with bent form, snow-white locks, and tottering steps. His has been a long round, but he has made it at last. See the middle-aged. His round has not been so long, but he must step off. See the youth. He has been on only a little while, but he is brought to the stepping-off place. He thought his round would be much longer. He supposed he was fairly getting started when that icy hand was laid upon him and the usher said, Come, you have made your round, and you must go. The infant that gave its first faint cry this morning may utter its last feeble wail tonight. And thus they go. But where? Eternity.

If you were to start today and ask each person you met the question,

Where are you going? and, if possible, you were to travel the world over

and ask each one of earth's inhabitants, there could be but one answer—

Eternity.

"Oh, eternity,

Long eternity!

Hear the solemn footsteps

Of eternity."

Only one life to live! Only one life, and then we must face vast, endless eternity. We shall pass along the pathway of life but once. Every step we take is a step that can never be taken again. With this fact in mind, who does not feel like calling upon the All-wise to direct his every step. If when we make a misstep we could go back and step it over, then there would not be such great necessity to step carefully. But we can never go back. We are leaving footprints. Just as our steps are, so will the footprints be which will tell the story of our life. If we had a score of lives to live, how to live this one would not be of such great moment. We should then have nineteen lives in which to correct the errors and sins of this one; but alas! we have but one. What, then, should we seek more earnestly than to know how to live?

We doubt not but there is in the heart of the reader a strong desire to live life as it should be lived. Thank God, you can. You desire your life to be like the fertile oasis, where the weary traveler refreshes himself. You have seen the rays of light lingering upon the hillside and treetop and gilding the fleecy cloud after the sun had gone down. You desire the beautiful rays of light from your life to linger long after your sun has gone down. You can have it that way. The deeds you do will live after you are gone. They are the footprints. Some one has said that we each day are here building the house we are going to occupy in eternity. If this be true, nothing should concern us so much as how to live. Some men are devoting their time and the power of their intellects to invention; some are studying statesmanship; some are studying the arts, others the sciences; but we have come to learn a little more about how to live. Many are thinking much about how they wish to die, but let us learn how to live. If we live well, we shall die well.

Since we have but one life to live and with it we must face eternity, I am sure there are many who want to make the most of life. There are many who want to be their best in life. This is not a play-ground, or a place to trifle with time. It is a place of work and effort, a place of purpose and earnestness, a place to do something. Life is not given us to squander nor fritter away, but was given us to accomplish a purpose in the mind of the Creator. If we will set ourselves to live as we should, God will help us and no man can hinder us. We are purchasing treasures for eternity by making a proper use of time. To trifle away time is indeed to be the greatest of spendthrifts. If you squander a dollar, you may regain it; but a moment wasted can never be regained.

There is great responsibility in life. It means much to live. The time was when you and I were not, now we are. We are, and there can never come a time when we shall not be. You and I shall always exist somehow, somewhere. One sweet thought to me is that I have time enough to do all that God intends for me to do, and do it well. Then comes another thought—a thought that awes: the good that I do, the sum of my usefulness, will be less than it should be if I spend a moment of time uselessly. God will give us all the time we need to accomplish all he purposes us to accomplish, but he does not give us one moment to trifle away.

The mission of this little volume is to strengthen and energize and help you to spend life as you should. May it please the Great Teacher, who has promised to show us the path of life, to bless this little work and by it help some one to a pure and noble life and to the accomplishment of all God's design in giving them life.

The Author.

THE WAY THE SAIL IS SET.

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I stood beside the open sea;

The ships went sailing by;

The wind blew softly o'er the lea;

The sun had cloudless sky.

Some ships sailed eastward, some sailed west,

Some north, some southward trend.

How can ships sail this way and that?

But one way blows the wind.

An old sea-captain made reply

(His locks with salt-spray wet):

"'Tis not the wind decides the course;

'Tis way the sails are set."

* * * * *

I stand beside the sea of life;

The ships go sailing by;

The winds blow fair from heaven's land;

No clouds bedim the sky.

But one sails eastward, one sails west,

One north, one southward goes:

How can ships sail this way and that

With selfsame wind that blows?

A voice made answer to my soul:

"'Tis not how blows the gale;

Each voyager decides the goal

By way he sets the sail."—Selected.

How to Live a Holy Life

THE MODEL LIFE.

In doing anything, it is always well to have a model by which to fashion our work. In fact, nothing is done without a pattern, either real or imaginary. The little boy making a toy has in in his mind a model by which he is framing his work. Likewise, the sculptor has in his mind a model, and as the marble wastes, the image grows into the likeness of the vision in his soul.

To live this one life of ours as it should be lived, we must have a perfect model after which to pattern. Thank God, this perfect model of life can be found. Of all the vast number of lives that have been lived since Adam down to this present day, there has been only one that we can take as a model. This one is the life of Jesus. He says, I am the life. To live this life of ours well, to live it to the highest degree of perfection, we must fashion it according to the glorious life of Christ. The life of Jesus is the model life for every other human life. He invites us, yea, commands us, to follow him, to step in his steps, to walk as he walked.

There have been many good men in the world, but none of them afford us a true pattern of life. There was a man who said, Be ye followers of me, but he immediately added, even as I also am of Christ. Man may so live as to reveal to us the life of Christ. We can then follow, not them, but the Christ-life they manifested through them.

Let me here say a word on a subject on which we may have more to say hereafter. The grandest, noblest work man has ever done is by his life to reveal the life of Christ to another, thereby helping that person to be fashioned more after the image of Jesus. A little flower grew in a place so shaded that no ray from the sun could fall directly upon it. A window was so situated that at a certain time in the afternoon it refracted the sun's rays and threw them upon the flower, thus giving it color and beauty, and aiding it to bloom. Some people are living in the dense shade. No light from Christ has ever shined upon them. If you so live as to refract the life of Christ and turn it upon them and thus stamp upon them a holier life, you have not lived in vain. To set the life of Christ in its purity and beauty before some one and influence him, though only a little, to live better and love Jesus more, is a work the worth of which can never be computed. He who helps another to a better way of living does more than he who gains great worldly honor and riches. Blessed indeed is that life which causes some other life to be more like Christ. Oh, may