‘Gain all you can.’ Here we may speak like the children of the world: we meet them on their own ground. But it is certain that we ought not to do; we ought not to gain money at the expense of life, nor at the expense of our health. We are secondly, to gain all we can without hurting our mind, any more than our body. We are thirdly, to gain all we can without hurting our neighbor.

Having gained all we can, by honest wisdom, and unwearied diligence, the second rule of Christian prudence is, ‘Save all you can.’ Do not throw the precious talent into the sea. Expend no part of it merely to gratify the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eye, or the pride of life. [Toward that end,] [d]espise delicacy and variety, and be content with what plain nature requires.

But let not any [one] imagine that he has done anything, barely by going thus far, by ‘gaining and saving all he can,’ if he were to stop here. All this is nothing, if a [person] goes not forward, if he does not point all this at a farther end. Having, first, gained all you can, and, secondly, saved all you can, then ‘give all you can.’

In order to see the ground and reason for this, consider, when the Possessor of heaven and earth [God] brought you into being, and placed you in this world, He placed you here, not as a proprietor, but as a steward: as such He entrusted you, for a season, with goods of various kinds. As you yourself are not your own, but His [God’s], such is, likewise, all that you enjoy [including your money]. Such is your soul and your body, not your own, but God’s. And so is your substance in particular. And He has told you, in the most clear and express terms, how you are to employ it for Him, in such a manner, that it may be all in a holy sacrifice, acceptable through Christ Jesus. And this light, easy service, He has promised to reward with an eternal weight of glory.

—John Wesley, Sermon 50, The Use of Money

Here Wesley lays out the proper use of money for Christians. We are to earn as much as we can and save as much as we can so that we can use our financial resources to help as many in need as we can. As he notes at the end of this sermon, Wesley considered everything in this world as belonging to God, even our money. If we are to follow God in Christ, we must be serious about loving our neighbor as ourselves and helping those truly in need.

How is your stewardship of money working for you? Do you possess it or does it possess you?

This is our first task: to grip the hands of Jesus with such tenacity that we are obliged to follow his lead, to seek first his Kingdom. The next step is so simple I am almost embarrassed to mention it, and yet it is so important that I must. Begin now to obey him in every way you can.

—Richard Foster, Freedom of Simplicity

We have talked much about salvation by faith, but there has been little realization that all real faith involves discipline. Faith is not a blithe “turning it all over to Jesus.” Faith is such confidence in Jesus that it takes seriously his summons, “If any [one] will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”

We have loudly proclaimed our dependence upon the grace of God, never guessing that the grace of God is given only to those who practice the grace of self-mastery. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for God is at work in you both to will and to work his good pleasure.” People working out, God working in—that is the NT synthesis.

Real discipline is not vain effort to save one’s self. It is an intelligent application to the self of those psychological principles which enable the self to enter into life-giving fellowship with God who is our salvation. In all Christian literature there is no writer who had a clearer conviction concerning salvation provided only in Christ than has Paul. His self-despair ended in that marvelous, ageless insight, “I thank God, through Jesus Christ my Lord.” “I know whom I have believed,” he cried in an ecstasy of confident gladness, “and am persuaded he that he is able.” Paul was a salvationist, in the noblest sense.

But Paul was also a disciplinarian. “I beat my body to keep it in subjection.” “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts.” “Mortify therefore your members which are upon earth.” These are not words of a man who scorned discipline!

We must recover for ourselves the significance and the necessity of the spiritual disciplines. Without them we shall continue to be impotent witnesses for Christ. Without them Christ will be impotent in his efforts to use us to save our society from disintegration and death.

—Albert Edward Day, Discipline and Discovery

A rather provocative piece here. Is Day advocating a works righteousness or something else?

I see myself now at the end of my Journey, my toilsome days are ended. I am going now to see that Head that was crowned with Thorns, and that Face that was spit upon for me. I have formerly lived by Hearsay and Faith, but now I go where I shall live by sight, and shall be with him in whose Company I delight myself.

—John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progess