Conflict and Conformity
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engage in the higher duties. A religious experience is gained only
through conflict, through disappointment, through severe discipline of
self, through earnest prayer. The steps to heaven must be taken one at
a time, and every advance step gives strength for the next.—
Counsels
to Parents, Teachers, and Students, 100
(1913).
Have Happiness Now—I do not look to the end for all the happi-
ness; I get happiness as I go along. Notwithstanding that I have trials
and afflictions, I look away to Jesus. It is in the strait, hard places that
He is right by our side, and we can commune with Him, lay all our
burdens upon the Burden Bearer, and say, “Here, Lord, I cannot carry
these burdens longer.” Then He says to us, “My yoke is easy, and My
burden is light” (
Matthew 11:30
). Do you believe it? I have tested it. I
love Him; I love Him. I see in Him matchless charms. And I want to
praise Him in the kingdom of God.—
Life Sketches of Ellen G. White,
292
(1915).
[557]
Two Antagonistic Principles—The kingdom of God comes not
with outward show. The gospel of the grace of God, with its spirit of
self-abnegation, can never be in harmony with the spirit of the world.
The two principles are antagonistic. “The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him:
neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (
1
Corinthians 2:14
).—
The Desire of Ages, 509
(1898).
Conform Not in Principles and Customs—Like Israel, Chris-
tians too often yield to the influence of the world and conform to its
principles and customs in order to secure the friendship of the ungodly,
but in the end it will be found that these professed friends are the most
dangerous of foes.
The Bible plainly teaches that there can be no harmony between
the people of God and the world. “Marvel not, my brethren, if the
world hate you” (
1 John 3:13
). Our Saviour says, “Ye know that it
hated Me before it hated you” (
John 15:18
). Satan works through the
ungodly, under cover of a pretended friendship, to allure God’s people
into sin that he may separate them from Him; and when their defense
is removed, then he will lead his agents to turn against them and seek
to accomplish their destruction.—
Patriarchs and Prophets, 559
(1890).
Common Fire and Sacred—The truth of God has not been mag-
nified in His believing people because they have not brought it into
their personal experience. They conform to the world and depend