#vigilence

[thistlepunk]

Meet Vigilence, my friends half demon paladin of vengance.

[nyhistory]

“At the Gates: Our safety depends upon official vigilance.” Wood engraving from Harper’s Weekly, September 5, 1885. New-York Historical Society Library, 85602d.

To help support the city’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19 and to protect the health of our visitors and staff, New-York Historical will remain closed through the end of the month, and all programs will be canceled through the end of April. 

For more information and updates, please visit us online here.

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Why Should Pastors Care About Their Holiness?

Brother pastor, do you care about holiness? Please don’t give up caring. Be vigilant. Soldier on against your sin from this day to the day of your death.

by Aaron Menikoff | Vigilance” has to be the war-cry of every pastor. “The true Christian is called to be a soldier,” wrote J.C. Ryle, “and must behave as such from the day of his conversion to the day of his death.” Pastors face a myriad of temptations. All are common...

[salamispots]

wip for a process ask

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Be sober [well balanced and self-disciplined], be alert and cautious at all times. That enemy of yours, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion [fiercely hungry], seeking someone to devour. But resist him, be firm in your faith [against his attack—rooted, established, immovable], knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being experienced by your brothers and sisters throughout the world. [You do not suffer alone.] — 1 Peter 5:8-9 | Amplified Bible (AMP) The Amplified Bible Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation. All rights reserved.

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Today in the Word

Open or Shut? | Scripture: Matthew 25:1–13 Devotional for March 21 Pastor and author Brian G. Hedges says that spiritual watchfulness or vigilance is “our most neglected spiritual discipline.” Spiritual watchfulness involves—through self-examination, prayer, and accountability—actively guarding our hearts against sin...

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

The Christian Race

by Samuel Porter Williams

"Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us." - Hebrews 12:1

The Christian life is a life of exertion, of holy diligence. Yet because the gospel abounds with expressions of the freeness of salvation, the presumptuous mind infers that all human efforts to obtain it are fruitless. And because this practical error agrees with the natural aversion of man to religion, and is congenial to his slothful habits, this delusive and fatal notion has many advocates. But whoever has carefully followed the examples of those great men of the Church through their pilgrimage, examined their principles, inspected their conduct, and observed their spirit, has not been thus deceived. God is not mocked. Human effort, mighty and persevering, he commands; and whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap.

Woe, therefore, to him who is at ease. All Christian example, as well as precept, assures us that to work out our salvation is no less necessary than to agonize to enter the way of life. In the doctrine of Christ we are taught that though grace is sovereign and free, it is not inoperative; that though eternal life is the gift of God, it is a life of service for God, a life of vigilance and a labor of love. God works in us to do as well as to will, and imparts grace and strength to his people. This is not to render their efforts needless, but to make them sure and availing; not to furnish an excuse for standing all the day idle in his vineyard, but to render their work efficacious toward deliverance from moral pollution.

The competitor in the race prepared himself physically, recognizing that the crown would be given only to the one who merited it. And in the Christian realm, the verdict is that no man can make his calling and election sure who does not give diligence to this end. Free, therefore, as salvation is, it will not come to the one who does not seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

Indeed, do you not know that in a race men run, and that a man cannot run without toil, nor advance without continued effort, nor reach the goal without perseverance--and all this needed until the end of the course? Every page of the gospel enforces some duty on man; and can either God or my neighbor do the work assigned me to do? Can any duty be performed without an effort of the mind and heart?

The Christian life is a spiritual journey, a passing from one stage of the pilgrimage to another; a progression in knowledge, hope, and holiness; a pressing toward the mark and reaching forth to some point to which we have not attained. And is all this to be gained without any exertion? The cross we are required to bear is not a material burden, nor our daily self-denial a literal yoke. Neither is our life a mere footrace. For as surely as the athlete failed of the garland crown when negligent in preparation, so certainly the sinner, if idle, will fail of salvation. Whatever his hands find to do must be done with all his might. And if the kingdom of heaven is to be taken only by force, he must be unrelenting in the conflict. The lagging traveler and the slumbering virgin are in danger. Without holy activity, no one lives the life of a Christian.

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