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to do of His good pleasure. Your whole nature will then be brought
under the control of the Spirit of Christ, and even your thoughts will
be subject to Him. You cannot control your impulses, your emotions,
as you may desire; but you can control the will, and you can make an
entire change in your life. By yielding up your will to Christ, your
life will be hid with Christ in God and allied to the power which is
above all principalities and powers. You will have strength from God
that will hold you fast to His strength; and a new life, even the life of
living faith, will be possible to you. But your will must co-operate
with God’s will, not with the will of associates through whom Satan is
constantly working to ensnare and destroy you.
Will you not without delay place yourself in right relation to God?
Will you not say, “I will give my will to Jesus, and I will do it now,” and
from this moment be wholly on the Lord’s side? Disregard custom and
the strong clamoring of appetite and passion. Give Satan no chance to
say: “You are a wretched hypocrite.” Close the door so that Satan will
not thus accuse and dishearten you. Say, “I will believe, I do believe
that God is my helper,” and you will find that you are triumphant in
God. By steadfastly keeping the will on the Lord’s side, every emotion
will be brought into captivity to the will of Jesus. You will then find
your feet on solid rock. It will take, at times, every particle of will
power which you possess; but it is God that is working for you, and
you will come forth from the molding process a vessel unto honor.
Talk faith. Keep on God’s side of the line. Set not your foot on
the enemy’s side, and the Lord will be your helper. He will do for you
that which it is not possible for you to do for yourself. The result will
be that you will become “like a cedar in Lebanon.” Your life will be
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noble, and your works will be wrought in God. There will be in you a
power, an earnestness, and a simplicity that will make you a polished
instrument in the hands of God.
You need to drink daily at the fountain of truth, that you may
understand the secret of pleasure and joy in the Lord. But you must
remember that your will is the spring of all your actions. This will,
that forms so important a factor in the character of man, was at the Fall
given into the control of Satan; and he has ever since been working
in man to will and to do of his own pleasure, but to the utter ruin
and misery of man. But the infinite sacrifice of God in giving Jesus,
His beloved Son, to become a sacrifice for sin, enables Him to say,