Chapter 40
What am I doing? A question for 1884 by J.C. Ryle. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. What am I doing in the matter of religion? This is the grand question after all. Time is flying. Death, judgment, and eternity are coming. And what am I about? It matters little what I am thinking, feeling, wishing, hoping, meaning, or intending.
I must look at my doings. Now what am I doing? Let me see. One, what am I doing with my soul? It will be lost or saved at last. It will either be in heaven or in hell forever. Now am I losing it? If I am, the Bible tells me plainly it is my own fault. The Lord Jesus Christ himself declares that a man may lose his own soul. What am I doing? Two, what am I doing with my sins? I am a great sinner and have committed many sins. Unless these sins are all pardoned, they will one day sink me
into hell. But there is forgiveness provided for any sinner who repents and comes to Jesus Christ by faith. Full forgiveness is ready for me if I will seek it in the right way. It is only believe and have, ask and receive. Now what am I doing? Three, what am I doing with my Bible? Here is a book which is able to make me wise unto salvation. It can show me how to live and how to die. It can teach me what to believe and what to be and what to do,
but it will do me no good if I never read it. I must look inside and read it if it is to help me towards heaven. Now what am I doing? 4. What am I doing with my Sundays? Here is a day which God has mercifully set apart to remind men of a world to come.
Once every week I am asked to give God his day and to remember my soul. What use do I make of Sunday? Do I spend it in idleness or eating and drinking and visiting and amusement and self-indulgence? If I go to God's house, do I carry my heart there? What am I doing?
5. What am I doing with my influence on others? Everybody has got some, more or less, and it is daily telling on all around him. Now, what is my influence on my family and friends and relatives and neighbors and companions? Is it for their happiness or their misery?
Is it for good or for evil? Am I pushing them towards heaven or towards hell? Am I helping them to be lost or to be saved? What am I doing? 6. What am I doing with Jesus Christ's invitations?
He has sent me many a message, whether I like to confess it or not. I have heard him sometimes knocking at the door of my heart by sicknesses or sorrows or warnings. He has often invited me to repent and be converted. I dare not say I never had a good thought offered to my soul
and asking to come in. But what am I doing? Well, life is short. I cannot live always, let me try to answer these questions. What am I doing? End of What Am I Doing? A question for 1884 by J.C. Ryle.
