J.C. Ryle: Are You Already With Christ?

Do you find yourself content?  Not the contentment of peace with God, but the contentment of "I've made it."  This kind of contentment puts every believer in the place of laziness, selfishness, and closed eyes to the world around us.  It is a contentment which looks forward to the coming of the Son while forgetting those in the present who have yet to experience forgiveness, mercy, and grace which comes only from the Father.

The words of J.C. Ryle below are a tack-on-the-chair of every believer, every disciple of Jesus Christ. Care for those in need, but please don't forget their eternal state.  For what good is it to feed a poor man to delay his physical death if his eternal destination is everlasting death?  Those of us "with Christ" are called to look beyond the physical and see the spiritual.  Are we, in the words of J.C. Ryle, "Awake to a deeper sense of the sorrowful state of those who are 'without Christ'?"  May his words speak directly to us as God's people.

"If you have become one of Christ's friends already, I exhort you to be a thankful man.  Awake to a deeper sense of the infinite mercy of having an almighty Savior, a title to heaven, a home that is eternal, a Friend that never dies!  A few more years and all our family gatherings will be over.  What a comfort to think that we have in Christ something that we can never lose!

"Awake to a deeper sense of the sorrowful state of those who are 'without Christ.'  We are often reminded of the many who are without food or clothing or school or church.  Let us pity them, and help them, as far as we can.  But let us never forget that there are people whose state is far more pitiable.  Who are they?  The people 'without Christ!'

"Have we relatives without Christ?  Let us feel for them, pray for them speak, to the King about them, strive to recommend the gospel to them.  Let us leave no stone unturned in our efforts to bring them to Christ.

"Have we neighbors without Christ?  Let us labor in every way for their soul's salvation.  The night comes when none can work.  Happy is he who lives under the abiding conviction that to be in Christ is peace, safety, and happiness; and that to be 'without Christ' is to be on the brink of destruction."