There is a very real place for looking closely at the lives of current and past men and women of God, and for allowing them to fully inspire us to keep on keeping on with the Lord. Indeed, let me remind you how utterly invaluable it is for all Christians to both read biographies and autobiographies of great Christians, as well as to study church history.

While it is true that all Christians are different, and while it is also true that our primary example to emulate is Christ himself and not other Christians, nonetheless we can take real encouragement by looking at the lives of other faithful believers.

There is a very real place for looking closely at the lives of current and past men and women of God, and for allowing them to fully inspire us to keep on keeping on with the Lord. Indeed, let me remind you how utterly invaluable it is for all Christians to both read biographies and autobiographies of great Christians, as well as to study church history.

I have often said that when I was a rather young Christian I was very much helped by reading plenty of books about great saints of God. Sometimes I would just borrow books from the church library, or buy my own. This is an excellent way to set your spiritual sights high.

When you read about these fantastic Christian giants, it spoils you for the ordinary. It sets the bar high. It makes you never want to settle for second best or for any sort of mediocrity in your life. That is what happened to me. It made me never want to just be an ordinary, run of the mill believer who never made any waves. It made me want to be like these terrific believers of the past.

So important is this matter of learning about other on-fire Christians, that some years ago I started a new category on my website called “Notable Christians”. With this piece included, there are now 108 articles in that section. Please check it out and be inspired and encouraged!

One such super-saint that I have featured in this series, A. W. Tozer, was also fully aware of the value of biographies and autobiographies. As he once said, “Next to the Holy Scriptures, the greatest aid to the life of faith may be Christian biographies.”

He too longed to please God greatly, in part because he was challenged and spurred on by other great men and women of God. And of course most of these heroes of the faith had this characteristic: they were determined to burn out for Christ, and never rust out.

They fully intended to give their utmost for Christ and the Kingdom. They had no thoughts of retirement, or of just cruising along slowly as a believer. They knew there was so much that needed to be done, including so many fields that were white for harvest, as Jesus said (John 4:35), that they just kept at it on full throttle.

They knew that their eternal rest would come in the next life, and that in this life they needed to give their all for the Lord, since the Lord had given his all for them. So they were fully committed to pray all they could, preach all they could, work all they could, and minister all they could. Just relaxing and taking it easy was simply not part of their mindset.

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