Give up the struggle and the fight; relax in the omnipotence of the Lord Jesus; look up into His lovely face and as you behold Him, He will transform you into His likeness. You do the beholding - He does the transforming. There is no short-cut to holiness.
There is no circumstance, no trouble, no testing, that can ever touch me until, first of all, it has gone past God and past Christ, right through to me. If it has come that far, it has come with great purpose.
Deep down in the Christian's life, always and all the time, there is to be a "no" to every demand that the flesh may make for recognition, and every demand that the flesh may make for approval, and every demand that the flesh may make for vindication. Always the Christian must bear about in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus.
We are not saved in order to be a blessing to other people--you will be that inevitably--but primarily we are saved in order to be conformed to the likeness of Jesus Christ, God's Son.
Return to the battle again, no longer trusting in the false and insufficient human resources which so foolishly we had taken into the battle, but now trusting in the limitless resources of our risen Lord.
We need, men so possessed by the Spirit of God that God can think His thoughts through our minds, that He can plan His will through our actions, that He can direct His strategy of world evangelization through His Church.
Our god is the thing, or person, which we think most precious, for whom we would make the greatest sacrifice, and who moves our heart with the warmest love. He is the person or thing that if lost would leave us desolate.
We are fit for the work of God only when we have wept over it, prayed about it, and then we are enabled by Him to tackle the job that needs to be done.
I believe that the sphere of service, your career, the plan which God has mapped out for you and prepared for you, is the greatest agency in His hands to conform You to His character and to His will.
Circumstances which we have resented, situations which we have found desperately difficult, have all been the means in the hands of God of driving the nails into the self-life which so easily complains.