'It is not easy to become a godly man
It is not easy to become a godly man — a Christly man
It always costs unsparing toil to carve the beauty God which shows us, as an ideal for our life. It costs self-discipline, anguish often — as we must deny ourselves and cut off the things we love. Self must be crucified — if the noble manhood in us is ever to be set free to shine in its beauty.
Michelangelo used to say, as the chippings fell thick and fast from the marble on the floor of his studio, "While the marble wastes — the image grows."
In the same way, there must be a wasting of self, a chipping away continually of the things that are dear to our human nature — if the things that are true and pure and just and lovely are to be allowed to come out in us. It is not easy to become a godly man — a Christly man .
Yet we must never forget that it is possible. God never yet put into a soul a dream of noble manhood or womanhood, which He is not able and ready to help make real.