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It is the privilege and duty of every believer in Christ to live victoriously. No man can ever reach noble Christian character, without sore cost in pain and sacrifice. The crowns are not put upon men’s heads through the caprice or favouritism of any king; they are the reward of victorious achievement. We can make life easy, in a way, if we will - by shirking its battles, by refusing to grapple with its antagonisms; but in this way we never can make anything beautiful and worthy of our life. We may spare ourselves costly service and great sacrifices, by saving our own life from hardships, risks, and pain - but we shall miss the blessing which can come only through the losing of self. “No cross - no crown” is the law of spiritual attainment. “He who has never a conflict - has never a victor’s palm, And only the toilers - know the sweetness of rest and calm.”

Therefore God really honours us, when He sets us in places where we must struggle. Yet He never makes life so hard for us, in any circumstances, that we cannot live victoriously through the help which He is ready to give. This lesson applies to temptation. Not one of us can miss being tempted - but we need never fail nor fall in it: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (I Cor. 10: 13). Not one need ever say, “I cannot endure this temptation, and must yield and fall.” Christ met the sorest temptations - but He was always victorious; and now this tried and all-conquering Christ is by our side as we meet and endure our temptations, and we cannot fail when He is with us.

The lesson applies also to whatever in our environment makes life hard. Sometimes we find ourselves in places and conditions of living, in which it seems impossible for us to grow into strength and beauty of character. This is true of many young people in the circumstances in which they are born - and in which they must grow up. They find about them the limitations of poverty. They cannot get the education they seem to need - to fit them for anything better than the most ordinary career. They envy other young people who have so much better opportunities. But these limitations, which seem to make fine attainments impossible, oft’times prove the very blessings through which nobleness is reached. Early hardship is the best school for training men. Not many of those who have risen to the best and truest success began in easy places.

Sometimes it is poor health which appears to make it impossible for one to live grandly, at least to do much in the world. But this is not an insuperable barrier. Many people who have been invalids all their life, have grown into rare sweetness of spirit, and have lived in the world in a way to make it better, and to leave influences of blessing behind them when they went away. Many a “shut-in” has made a narrow room and a chamber of pain - the centre of a heavenly life, whose blessings have gone far and wide.

Home should be life’s best school. What the conservatory is to the little plant or flower which finds warmth, good soil, and gently culture there, growing into sweet loveliness; home should be to the young life that is born into it, and grows up within its doors. But not all home-life is ideal. Not in all homes, is it easy to live sweetly and beautifully. Sometimes the atmosphere is unfriendly, cold, cheerless, chilling. It is hard to keep the heart gently and kindly in the bitterness which creeps into home-life. But no matter how sadly a home may fail in its love and helpfulness, how much there may be in it of sharpness and bitterness, it is the mission of a Christian always to be sweet, to seek to overcome the hardness, to live victoriously. This is possible, too - through the help of Christ.

Many of us find ourselves in uncongenial conditions in which we must stay, at least for the time. But, whatever the circumstances, we may live Christianly. God will never allow us to be put in any place in which, through the help of His grace - we cannot be godly and beautiful Christians. Limitations, if we rightly use them, only help to make our life more earnest, more beautiful. The very hardness in their condition, is that which brings out the best qualities in them, and produces the finest results in character and achievement.

This lesson applies also to experiences of misfortune, adversity, or sorrow. Paul speaks of himself in one place as “sorrowful - yet always rejoicing.” His life could not be crushed, his joy could not be quenched, his songs could not be hushed. We must all meet trial in some form - but one need never be overwhelmed by it. Yet it is very important that we should learn to pass through our sorrow as Christians. We cannot help weeping. But our tears must not be rebellious. “May Thy will be done” must breathe through all our sobbings and cries, like the melody of a sweet song in a dark night of storm.

Sorrow hurts some lives. It embitters them. It leaves them broken, disheartened, not caring more for life. But this is not the Christian way. We should accept sorrow, however it may come to us, as bringing with it a fragment of God’s sweet will for us, as bringing also some new revealing of divine love. We should meet it quietly, reverently; careful not to miss the blessing it brings to us. Then we should rise up again at once, and go on with our work and duty. Some hands are left hanging down after grief has come. “I do not care any more for life,” men are sometimes heard to say. “I have no interest in my business, since my wife died. I want to give it all up.” But that is not victorious living. Sorrow absolves us from no duty, from no responsibility. God’s plan for our life goes on - though for the life dearest to us, it has ended. “Let us dry our tears and go on,” wrote a godly man to his friend, after a sore bereavement. That is the true Christian spirit.

Thus all Christian life should be victorious. We should never allow ourselves to be defeated, in any experience which may come to us. The grace of Christ can take the most unlovely life - and change it into beauty. Godliness is impossible to none, where the grace of God is allowed to work freely and thoroughly.

(Adapted from Grace Gems)