132
Mind, Character, and Personality Volume 2
Spirit to them that ask Him than parents are to give good gifts to their
children?—Lt 7, 1892. (
Selected Messages 2:243
.)
Faith Not to Be Confused With Feeling—Many have confused
ideas as to what constitutes faith, and they live altogether below their
privileges. They confuse feeling and faith, and are continually dis-
tressed and perplexed in mind; for Satan takes all possible advantage
of their ignorance and inexperience....
We are to accept of Christ as our personal Saviour, or we shall
fail in our attempt to be overcomers. It will not answer for us to hold
ourselves aloof from Him, to believe that our friend or our neighbor
may have Him for a personal Saviour but that we may not experience
His pardoning love. We are to believe that we are chosen of God, to
be saved by the exercise of faith, through the grace of Christ and the
work of the Holy Spirit; and we are to praise and glorify God for such
a marvelous manifestation of His unmerited favor.
It is the love of God that draws the soul of Christ, to be graciously
received and presented to the Father. Through the work of the Spirit
the divine relationship between God and the sinner is renewed. The
Father says: “I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people.
I will exercise forgiving love toward them and bestow upon them My
[537]
joy. They shall be to Me a peculiar treasure; for this people whom
I have formed for Myself shall show forth My praise.”—
Sanitarium
Announcement, 2, 1893
. (HC 77.)
Faith and Feeling Are Distinct—Feeling and faith are as distinct
from each other as the east is from the west. Faith is not dependent
on feeling. Daily we should dedicate ourselves to God and believe
that Christ understands and accepts the sacrifice, without examining
ourselves to see if we have that degree of feeling that we think should
correspond with our faith. Have we not the assurance that our heavenly
Father is more willing to give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him in
faith than parents are to give good gifts to their children? We should
go forward as if to every prayer that we send to the throne of God we
heard the response from the One whose promises never fail. Even
when depressed by sadness, it is our privilege to make melody in our
hearts to God. When we do this, the mists and clouds will be rolled
back, and we will pass from the shadow and darkness into the clear
sunshine of His presence.—MS 75, 1893. (HC 120.)