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Feeble Efforts Not Enough, September 20
Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer. From the end of the
earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to
the rock that is higher than I.
Psalm 61:1, 2
.
When we are burdened, when we are pressed with temptation, when
the feelings and desires of the natural heart are contending for the victory,
we should offer up fervent, importunate prayer to our heavenly Father in
the name of Christ, and this will bring Jesus to our help, so that through
His all-powerful and efficacious name we may gain the victory and banish
Satan from our side. But we should not flatter ourselves that we are safe
while we make but feeble efforts in our own behalf.... “Strive to enter in at
the strait gate” (
Luke 13:24
).
Our danger does not arise from the opposition of the world, but it is
found in the liability of our being in friendship with the world and imitating
the example of those who love not God or His truth. The loss of earthly
things for the truth’s sake, the suffering of great inconvenience for loyalty
to principle, does not place us in danger of losing our faith and hope; but
we are in danger of suffering loss because of being deceived and overcome
by the temptations of Satan. Trials will work for our good if we receive
and bear them without murmuring, and will tend to separate us from the
love of the world and will lead us to trust more fully in God.
There is help for us only in God. We should not flatter ourselves that we
have any strength in wisdom of our own, for our strength is weakness, our
judgment foolishness. Christ conquered the foe in our behalf because He
pitied our weakness and knew that we would be overcome and would perish
if He did not come to our help. He clothed His divinity with humanity, and
thus was qualified to reach man with His human arm while with His divine
arm He grasped the throne of the Infinite. The merits of Christ elevate and
ennoble humanity, and through the name and grace of Christ it is possible
for man to overcome the degradation caused by the Fall, and through the
exalted, divine nature of Christ to be linked to the Infinite
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23
The Review and Herald, February 5, 1895
.
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