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Take Your Stand on Christ’s Side, November 3
The trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect
work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
James 1:3, 4
.
To the angels, the course followed by human beings seems strangely incon-
sistent. They see how plainly degradation is revealed on the side of unbelief and
indulgence of appetite. They see how untiringly Satan is working to destroy the
image of God in man. They wonder why beings dependent on their Creator for
every breath they draw act so unreasonably and inconsistently; why they choose
the side of the one who crucified Christ and who has filled the world with strife
and envy and jealousy....
Christ is the Lord our Righteousness. Let us take our stand on His side now, just
now. Let none be ashamed to acknowledge Christ as their Saviour, their counselor,
their guide, and their exceeding great reward. Is this sacrificing anything? Is it
an honor to be numbered among Satan’s army? Those who make this choice
gain nothing. Only death, eternal death, awaits them. Let those who are tempted
to choose the world, to strive to gain the recognition of the world, remember
that unless they choose Christ here, they will not have the recognition of heaven.
Tempted ones, whom have you chosen as your leader? ...
Come to Christ just as you are, weak, helpless, and ready to die. Cast your-
selves wholly on His mercy. There is no difficulty within or without that cannot
be conquered in His strength. Some have stormy tempers; but He who calmed the
stormy sea of Galilee can say to your heart, if you repent, “Peace, be still.” There
is no nature that Christ cannot subdue, no temper so stormy that He cannot quell
it, if the heart is surrendered to His keeping.
No one need despond who commits his soul to Jesus. We have an all-powerful
Saviour. Looking to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of your faith, you can say,
“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not
we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into
the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the
mountains shake with the swelling thereof” (
Psalm 46:1-3
)....
In the future life we shall understand things that here greatly perplex us.
We shall realize how strong an opponent we had, and how angels of God were
commissioned to guard us as we followed the counsel of the Word of God. Christ
tells us that our sea will not always be smooth. We shall have tribulation. This
is a part of our education, necessary to the formation of a strong, symmetrical
character.—
Manuscript 130, November 3, 1903
, “Christ Stilling the Tempest.”
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