Be Ever Watchful

"Blessed is he that watcheth."
-- Revelation 16:15

"We die daily," said the apostle. This was the life of the early
Christians; they went everywhere with their lives in their hands. We
are not in this day called to pass through the same fearful
persecutions: if we were, the Lord would give us grace to bear the
test; but the tests of Christian life, at the present moment, though
outwardly not so terrible, are yet more likely to overcome us than even
those of the fiery age. We have to bear the sneer of the world-that is
little; its blandishments, its soft words, its oily speeches, its
fawning, its hypocrisy, are far worse. Our danger is lest we grow rich
and become proud, lest we give ourselves up to the fashions of this
present evil world, and lose our faith. Or if wealth be not the trial,
worldly care is quite as mischievous. If we cannot be torn in pieces by
the roaring lion, if we may be hugged to death by the bear, the devil
little cares which it is, so long as he destroys our love to Christ,
and our confidence in him. I fear me that the Christian church is far
more likely to lose her integrity in these soft and silken days than in
those rougher times. We must be awake now, for we traverse the
enchanted ground, and are most likely to fall asleep to our own
undoing, unless our faith in Jesus be a reality, and our love to Jesus
a vehement flame. Many in these days of easy profession are likely to
prove tares, and not wheat; hypocrites with fair masks on their faces,
but not the true-born children of the living God. Christian, do not
think that these are times in which you can dispense with watchfulness
or with holy ardour; you need these things more than ever, and may God
the eternal Spirit display his omnipotence in you, that you may be able
to say, in all these softer things, as well as in the rougher, "We are
more than conquerors through him that loved us."

By Charles Spurgeon

I must remain firm and steadfast in Christ. I must cling to Him. He is my only hope for enduring to the end.