You Have Only Just Begun, J. R. Miller, Intimate Letters on
Personal Problems, 1914. Dear friend, you say that you
cannot live up to the things you read in the Bible and in
Christian books. I know of no one who can do so.
The Bible sets before us very lofty ideals, so lofty that we
cannot reach them in a day, or a month, or in 25 years, so long
as you may live, and if you spend every year in striving toward
the best things, you will still find that you have not fully
attained them. Paul was a great deal better
Christian than most of us, and he said, when he was quite an
old man, that he was not yet perfect, but was still striving
after the things which he wished to attain. We never measure up
to our ideals. We never are so holy any day
as we intend to be in the morning when we set out. We certainly
fall very far below God's requirements. If we did not, there would be
no special need of a Savior. Jesus Christ came into the world
to redeem us and save us, because we cannot live up to the requirements
of His divine law. You must not judge yourself therefore
too severely. Christ does not. He is very patient
with our slow progress, Always do your best every day, and you
will do better still tomorrow. Make every day as beautiful as
you can, pure and true and holy, with obedience and love, then
the next day can be made a little better than this one, and so
on through every day unto the end. Yet, you will still find
on the last evening of your life that you have very much to attain,
that really you have just begun to be a Christian. I think it
was Rubenstein, the great musician, who said at the close of a long
life devoted to intense musical work, I have just begun to know
music. It is so in Christian life. If
you live to be eighty years old, growing every day more and more
holy, you can say then no more than that you have begun, just
begun, to know Christ and to know how to live a Christian
life. Remember that you will never
reach your goal until you leave this poor world and enter upon
the perfect life in heaven. Brothers, I do not consider myself
yet to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do, forgetting
what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press
on toward the goal, to win the prize for which God has called
me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3, 13 and 14.