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Cultivate Tenderness in the Home, August 18
And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for
charity shall cover the multitude of sins.
1 Peter 4:8
.
The young man who came to Jesus asked what he should do that he
might inherit eternal life. Jesus told him to keep the commandments, and
enumerated several of the precepts of the law. The young man said, “All these
things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?” (
Matthew 19:20
). The
first four commandments enjoin upon man the duty of loving God supremely
and the last six present the requirement of loving our neighbors as ourselves.
How many are truly, sincerely, and wholeheartedly doing this?
The Lord is coming in a little while, and are we performing the duties that
result from righteousness? Love is the basis of godliness. No man has love to
God, no matter what his profession may be, unless he has unselfish love for
his brother. As we love God because He first loved us, we shall love all for
whom Christ died. We shall not feel like letting the soul who is in the greatest
peril, and in the greatest need, go unwarned, unlabored for, and uncared for.
We shall not feel like holding the erring off, and being critical and exacting,
or letting them alone to plunge into further unhappiness and discouragement,
and to fall on Satan’s battleground, for God will deal with us as He deals with
our brethren or the younger members of the Lord’s family.
Cultivate tenderness of heart; surround yourselves in your home life with
the atmosphere of love. But the spirit that has largely pervaded the church is
an offense to God. Everyone who has been free to condemn, to dishearten,
and to discourage, who has failed to give tender kindness, sympathy, and
compassion to the tempted and the tried, will in his own experience be
brought over the ground which others have passed over, and suffered with
their hardheartedness, and will feel what others have suffered because of his
want of sympathy, until he shall abhor his hardness of heart and open the door
for Jesus to come in.
The converting power of God must come to every soul who has any
connection with the work and cause of God that each one may be filled with
the love and compassion of Christ or many will never see the kingdom of
heaven.—
Manuscript 62, August 18, 1894
, “Home Missionary Work.”
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