Holiness: For the Will of God Is Your Sanctification – 1 Thessalonians 4:3 [Annotated, Updated]

by J.C. Ryle

You may be struggling hard for the rewards of this world. Perhaps you are straining every nerve to obtain money, position, power, or pleasure. If that is your case, be cautious. Your sowing will lead to a crop of bitter disappointment. Unless you begin to take care, your end will be to lie down in sorrow. Thousands have travelled the path you are pursuing, and they have awoken too late, only to find that the path ends in misery and eternal ruin. They have fought hard for wealth, honor, power, and promotion, and have turned their backs on God, Christ, heaven, and the world to come. What has their end been? Often, far too often, they have found out that their whole life has been a grand mistake. They have tasted by bitter experience the feelings of the dying statesman who cried aloud in his last hours, “The battle is fought; the battle is fought, but the victory is not won.” For the sake of your own happiness, resolve this day to join the Lord’s side. Shake off your past carelessness and unbelief. Come out from the ways of a thoughtless, unreasoning world. Take up the cross and become a good soldier of Christ. Fight the good fight of faith, that you may be happy as well as safe.