| The Joy of Service |
Chapter 19 |
Page 6 |
A daughter writes after her father’s death: “His face had been my greatest comfort all this summer, even when he could converse but little. It was the same pure, childlike face and smile in all his suffering.” But it took seventy years of noble, unselfish, holy living for Christ and for the good of men to make this transfigured face.
The work which Christ gives to us really is to build character. We are not in the world to have a good time, to make money, to do great things, to write books, to cultivate farms, to sell good, or to study; we are here to make men and women of ourselves. The test of success at the end is not our wealth, the extent of our fame, the number of things we have done, but our character – that which will live on the other side of death, the person who will appear before God when our spirit presents itself there. It is of the greatest importance, therefore, that we give first heed to the work that is being done on our inner life along the years.
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