The Holiest of All By Andrew Murray

ttbe Doliest of ail 211
XLVI.
OF DILIGENCE AND PERSEVERANCE.
"VT. 9. But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things
that accompany salvation, though we thus speak :
10. For God is not unrighteous to forget your work, and the love which
do
ye showed toward his name, in that ye ministered to the saints, and still
minister.
11. And we desire that each of you may show the same diligence unto the
fulness of hope even to the end :
12. That ye be not sluggish, but imitators of them who through faith and
patience 1 inherit the promises.
IN every Christian community you have two classes. There
are some who give themselves up with their whole heart to seek
and serve God. There are others, too often the majority, who,
like Israel, are
content with deliverance from Egypt, and settle
down in sloth, without striving for the full possession
of the
promise, the rest in the promised land. In speaking to such a
Church, one might address the two classes separately. Or one
might address the whole body now from one, then from the other
of the two standpoints. This is what the Epistle does. In its
warning it speaks to all as if all were in danger. In its exhorta
tion and encouragement
it
speaks as if all shared the sentiments
of the better half.
But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and
things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak of
1
Longsuffering.