C.H. Spurgeon – Words of Warning for Daily Living

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May 1

Running for a Purpose
SOME people think they must be religious, in order to be respectable. There are a
vast number of people in the world who go to church and to chapel, because
everybody else does so. It is disreputable to waste your Sundays, not to be found
going up to the house of God; therefore they take a pew and attend the services, and
they think they have done their duty: they have obtained all that they sought for,
when they can hear their neighbors saying, "Such-and-such a man is a very
respectable person; he is always very regular at his church; he is a very reputable
person, and exceedingly praiseworthy." Verily, if this be what you seek after in your
religion, you shall get it; for the Pharisees who sought the praise of men "had their
reward." But when you have gotten it, what a poor reward it is! Is it worth the
drudgery? I do not believe that the drudgery to which people submit, in order to be
called respectable, is at all compensated by what they gain. I am sure, for my own
part, I would not care a solitary rap what I was called, or what I was thought; nor
would I perform anything that was irksome to myself for the sake of pleasing any man
who ever walked beneath the stars, however great or mighty he may be. It is the sign
of a fawning, cringing spirit, when people are always seeking to do that which renders
them respectable. The esteem of men is not worth looking after, and sad it is, that
this should be the only prize that some men put before them in the poor religion
which they undertake.