For bodily exercise is profitable for a little, but piety is profitable for everything, having promise of life, of the present one, and of that to come. 1 Timothy 4:8
“Let it be your first care to set up Christ in your hearts; see that you make all your worldly interests to stoop to Him; that you be entirely and unreservedly devoted unto Him. If you wilfully, and deliberately, and ordinarily, harbor any sin, you are undone. See that you unfeignedly take the law of Christ as the rule of your words, thoughts, and actions, and subject your whole man, members, and minds, faithfully to Him…
Let piety be your first and great business: it is the highest point of justice to give God his due. Beware that none of you be a prayerless person; for that is a most certain discovery that you are a Christless and graceless person, or one that is a very stranger to the fear of God. Suffer not your Bibles to gather dust. See that you converse daily with the Word. That man can never lay claim to blessedness whose delight is not in the law of the Lord. Let meditation and self-examination be your daily exercise.
But piety without charity is but the half of Christianity, or rather impious hypocrisy. We may not divide the tables; see therefore that you do justly, and love mercy, and let equity and charity run like an even thread throughout all your dealings. Be you temperate in all things, and let chastity and sobriety be your undivided companions. Let truth and purity, seriousness and modesty, heaviness and gravity, be the constant ornaments of your speech. Let patience and humility, simplicity and sincerity, shine out in all the parts of your conversations. See that you forget and forgive wrongs, and requite them with kindness, as you would be found the children of the Most High.
Will you answer the calls of divine Providence? Would you remove the incumbent, or prevent the impendent calamities? Would you plant nurseries for the church of God? Would you that God should build your houses and bless your substance? Would you that your children should bless you? O then set up piety in your families, as ever you would be blessed or be a blessing. Let your hearts and your houses be the temples of the living God, in which his worship may be with constancy reverently performed”
Joseph Alleine in “Counsel for Personal and Family Godliness” in An Alarm to Unconverted Sinners (Glasgow: Charmers & Collins, 1824) 270-271, 276.
What a joy it has been for Jenni and me to celebrate Sammy’s graduation from college, to observe Sophie’s 20th birthday, and then Mother’s Day with my mother and father, Jack & Patsy Hoag, and with my wife’s parents, John & Wilma Pickrell. We are thankful for everyone’s commitment to God and, to the best of their ability, for how each person sets up piety with charity in our family. What about your family? Setting up piety with charity in your family will cost you everything, but the matchless gain is worth the sacrifice. You will be found as children of the Most High!