Sunday, September 4, 2022

Disobedience not only hardens the heart and conscience of the guilty one, but it tends to corrupt the faith of others....

 

Age will never excuse us from obeying God. Our faith should be prolific of good works; for faith without works is dead. Every duty performed, every sacrifice made in the name of Jesus, brings an exceeding great reward. In the very act of duty, God speaks, and gives His blessing. But He requires of us an entire surrender of the faculties. The mind and heart, the whole being, must be given to Him, or we fall short of becoming true Christians. 

God has withheld nothing from man that can secure to him eternal riches. He has clothed the earth with beauty, and furnished it for his use and comfort during his temporal life. He has given His Son to die for the redemption of a world that had fallen through sin and folly.... God requires prompt and unquestioning obedience of His law; but men are asleep, or paralyzed by the deceptions of Satan, who suggests excuses and subterfuges, and conquers their scruples, saying, as he said to Eve in the garden, “Ye shall not surely die.” Disobedience not only hardens the heart and conscience of the guilty one, but it tends to corrupt the faith of others.—Testimonies for the Church 4:145, 146. 

Can we afford to have our own way, and take ourselves out of the hands of God, because it is more pleasing to the natural heart? God requires perfect submission and perfect obedience.—Testimonies for the Church 4:218. 

As a flower turns to the sun that the bright rays may aid in perfecting its beauty and symmetry, so should the youth turn to the Sun of Righteousness, that Heaven’s light may shine upon them.—Testimonies for the Church 4:445. WGD 249

 

Christ gave no stinted service. He did not measure His work by hours. His time, His heart, His soul and strength, were given to labor for the benefit of humanity. Through weary days He toiled, and through long nights He bent in prayer for grace and endurance that He might do a larger work. With strong crying and tears He sent His petitions to heaven, that His human nature might be strengthened, that He might be braced to meet the wily foe in all his deceptive workings, and fortified to fulfill His mission of uplifting humanity. To His workers He says, I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done.” John 13:15. MH 500

 

 

I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies. Psalm 119:59, KJV