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Building with God, June 1
For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry,
ye are God’s building.
1 Corinthians 3:9
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This figure represents human character, which is to be wrought upon
point by point. Each day God works on His building, stroke upon stroke,
to perfect the structure, that it may become a holy temple for Him. Man
is to cooperate with God, striving in His strength to make himself what
God designs him to be, building his life with pure, noble deeds.
Man works and God works. Man is called upon to strain every muscle
and to exercise every faculty in the struggle for immortality, but it is
God who supplies the efficiency. God has made amazing sacrifices for
human beings. He has expended mighty energy to reclaim man from
transgression and sin to loyalty and obedience, but He does nothing
without the cooperation of humanity.... It is by unceasing endeavor that
we maintain the victory over the temptations of Satan....
No one is borne upward without stern, persevering effort in his own
behalf. All must engage in the warfare for themselves. Individually we
are responsible for the issue of the struggle; though Noah, Daniel, and
Job were in the land, they could deliver neither son nor daughter by their
righteousness....
Often the training and education of a lifetime must be discarded, that
one may become a learner in the school of Christ. Our hearts must be
educated to become steadfast in God. We are to form habits of thought
that will enable us to resist temptation. We must learn to look upward.
The principles of the Word of God—principles that are as high as heaven
and that compass eternity—we are to understand in their bearing on our
daily life. Every act, every word, every thought, is to be in accord with
these principles.
The precious graces of the Holy Spirit are not developed in a moment.
Courage, fortitude, meekness, faith, unwavering trust in God’s power to
save, are acquired by the experience of years. By a life of holy endeavor
and firm adherence to the right the children of God are to seal their destiny.
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