It is common to see Christians get out of balance. Some seem to have forgotten that we are to be both students and servants. We are to learn and then live it out– put it in “shoe-leather” as we often say. All the learning in the world is of no benefit if we don’t put it to use. Learning is for the living. It should enable us to become what we ought to be so we can do what we ought to do. And what we do should always be according to the will of God.
Speaking of this J. R. Miller wrote, “There are so many possibilities in life, in attainment and achievement, and so many opportunities of doing good, that it is a glorious thing to live. Surely, then, we ought to make the most of our life, not failing to become what Christ would have us to be, or to do the sweet things he would have us do–as we pass along the way.
Yet life’s lessons must always be learned slowly. Paul was well on in life when he said, “I have learned, in whatever state I am, therein to be content.” The words suggest that the lesson was not easily learned; that it required time and struggle. It is only fair to infer that Paul could not have written thus in his earliest epistles. There is comfort in this for us common mortals, who in younger or middle life grow discouraged because we have not Paul’s contentment. If only we are really learning the lesson, there is hope that some day we shall be able to say we have learned it.”
