| The Joy of Service |
Chapter 5 |
Page 5 |
No one but Christ can keep our soul. There are no other hands in which we may place this sacred deposit. No gentlest, purest, wisest mother can take charge of her own child’s soul. She cannot cleanse its heart of evil dispositions and tendencies. She cannot keep it from the power of evil, and shelter it form temptation. She cannot put upon its nature Christ’s likeness. She may care for its body, and train its mind, but she cannot save and keep its soul. Only Christ can do this.
There is a wonderful verse in the little letter of Jude, which reads: “Unto Him that is able to guard you from stumbling and to set you before the presence of His glory without blemish in exceeding joy… be glory and majesty, dominion and power.” That which He is able to do is to guard us from stumbling on our way through this world, and at the end present us without blemish before God. The same confidence is in St. Paul’s words: “He is able to guard that which I have committed unto Him against that day.” This keeping is no easy task. There are a thousand things that may hurt a life. Evil lurks in sunshine and shadow, in joy and sorrow, in pleasure and pain, in success and failure, in health and sickness, in companionship and loneliness, in prosperity and adversity.
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