It is not persecution that many among the people of God find now, but a slippery day, in which it is difficult to keep the feet. The hot blast of persecution is not as bad as the clear frost which, after a shower of rain, makes the ground slippery as glass; and that is the character of the day we live in. Little snares of Satan are on every side; the feet slip and slide and you get discouraged—but why? God says, “Is not eternal life yours? Have I not pledged Myself that it is? If you fail, Christ will not fail. If you slip, get up again and go on, you have eternal life in Him.” What! Is your heart drooping when Christ in heaven is yours? It is not only that Christ in heaven is ours—that Christ, the very delight of the Father is ours—but there is in Christ our answer to everything.

The eternal life pledged to me in Thy Son, my God! That is what I have got; and that eternal life entirely changes death and the grave to me. The life of the body is corruptible, every day tending to corruption. What grace it is on Christ’s part to sever the soul from it. But I have a life which is altogether new, a life born of incorruptible seed, which nothing has power to corrupt. It is not only like pure water gushing out of a rock, but water of such purity and brightness, that you can neither color nor corrupt it.

But let us ask ourselves, “Has this eternal life been marking the life we are leading?” Today, for instance, have we been passing with it through every duty? A saint has no business doing anything unless he can recognize Christ in it. If today you have been living a life in the body, indulging its lusts, wishing for this thing and that, you have not been walking as one who possesses the eternal life.