A truly Christian life is not a mere release from punishment, or a mere passive acceptance of mercy. It is that sort of life in which the depths of our own sinful hearts are very fully fathomed, and the power of that love of God which redeems and sanctifies us is also fully explored by us. It is a real experience of two opposites: sin, our own sin, and grace, the grace of Christ. The opening chapters of the Bible bring before us, in the garden of Eden, man as a sinner, and God as a Saviour. They unfold the relation between Adam and Eve, after they had believed the Devil's lie, and the blessed and righteous God, who undertook the deliverance of the fallen and guilty. This relation continues still, and makes your life and mine, if we let it, more than a troublesome dream, a blessed journey into a land of eternal rest. If Eden was lost to us through sin, Paradise is opened to us through faith and hope in Christ. When God talked with Adam in Eden, and imposed on him the threatened penalty of transgression, death, He also, in the promise that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head, took on Himself the burden of our trials, temptations, and even death, to open to us, and guide us into, eternal life. In the following of this guidance is the true life of a Christian: Go forth, each morning, in the remembrance of this, abiding with and influencing you in all your lawful duties.
- text taken from Daily Bread - Bring a Few Morning Meditations for the Use of Catholic Christians by Father Richard Waldo Sibthorp