“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)
We should aim to let our light shine in the world, for the glory of God, and the conviction and edification of men.
I have some idea of what a Christian ought to be; and it is, I hope, what I desire to be. A Christian should be conformable to Christ in his spirit and in his practice.
That is, he should be spiritually minded, dead to the world, filled with zeal for the glory of God, the spread of the Gospel, and the good of souls. He should be humble, patient, meek, cheerful, and thankful under all events and changes. He should account it the business and honour of his life — to imitate Him who pleased not Himself, who went about doing good.
The whole deportment of a Christian should show that the saving knowledge of Jesus, affords him all he could expect from it–a balm for every grief, an amends for every loss, a motive for every duty, a restraint from every evil, a pattern for everything which he is called to do or suffer, and a principle sufficient to constitute the actions of every day, even in common life — as acts of piety.
He should make every event through which he passes, subservient and subordinate to his main design — the glory of Christ.
— John Newton, The Letters of John Newton
LETTER 4 January 26, 1775.