r, or
bring a sweat-drop on to their foreheads. That is not Christian
Endeavour. Work that does not 'take it out of you' is not worth doing.
The other word 'striving' brings up the picture of the arena with the
combatants' strain of muscle, their set teeth, their quick, short
breathing, their deadly struggle. That is Paul's notion of Endeavour.
Now 'Endeavour,' like a great many other words, has a baser and a nobler
side to it. Some people, when they say, 'I will endeavour,' mean that
they are going to try in a half-hearted way, with no prospect of
succeeding. That is not Christian Endeavour. The meaning of the
word--for the expression in my text might just as well be rendered
'endeavouring' as 'striving'--is that of a buoyant confident effort of
all the concentrated powers, with the certainty of success. That is the
endeavour that we have to cultivate as Christian men. And there is only
one field of human effort in which that absolute confidence that it
shall not be in vain is anything but presumptuous arrogance; namely, in
the effort after making ourselves what God means us to be, what Jesus
Christ longs for us to be, what the Spirit of God is given to us in
order that we should be. 'We shall _not_ fail,' ought to be the word of
every man and woman when they set themselves to the great task of
working out, in their own characters and personalities, the Divine
intention which is made a Divine possibility by the sacrifice of Jesus
Christ and the gift of the Divine Spirit.

So then what we come to is just this, dear brethren, if we are
Christians at all, we have to make a business of our religion; to go
about it as if we meant work. Ah! what a contrast there is between the
languid way in which Christian men pursue what the Bible designates
their 'calling' and that in which men with far paltrier aims pursue
theirs! And what a still sadder contrast there is between the way in
which we Christians go about our daily business, and the way in which we
go about our Christian life! Why, a man will take more pains to learn
some ornamental art, or some game, than he will ever take to make
himself a better Christian. The one is work. What is the other? To a
very large extent dawdling and make-believe.

You remember the old story,--it may raise a smile, but there should be a
deep thought below the smile,--of the little child that said as to his
father that 'he was a Christian, but he had not been working much at it
lately.' Do not