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Testimonies for the Church Volume 5
My blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For
My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He that eateth
My flesh, and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him. As
the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father: so he that
eateth Me, even he shall live by Me.” How many of those who are
laboring in word and doctrine are eating Christ’s flesh and drinking
His blood? How many can comprehend this mystery? The Saviour
Himself explains this matter: “It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh
profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and
they are life.” The word of God must be interwoven with the living
character of those who believe it. The only vital faith is that faith
which receives and assimilates the truth till it is a part of the being and
the motive power of the life and action. Jesus is called the Word of
God. He accepted His Father’s law, wrought out its principles in His
life, manifested its spirit, and showed its beneficent power in the heart.
Says John: “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we
beheld His glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father,) full
of grace and truth.” The followers of Christ must be partakers of His
experience. They must assimilate the word of God. They must be
changed into its likeness by the power of Christ and reflect the divine
attributes. They must eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of
God, or there is no life in them. The spirit and work of Christ must
become the spirit and work of His disciples.
It is not enough to preach the truth; it must be carried out in the
life. Christ must be abiding in us, and we in Him, in order to do the
work of God. Each must have an individual experience and put forth
personal efforts to reach souls. God requires each to put all his powers
into the work and, through continual effort, educate himself to do that
work acceptably. He expects everyone to bring the grace of Christ into
his heart, that he may be a bright and shining light to the world. If
God’s workers train all their powers thoroughly, then they may work
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understandingly, in all wisdom, and God will surely respond to their
efforts to uplift, refine, and save their fellow men. All the workers must
use tact and bring their faculties under the controlling influence of the
Spirit of God. They must make it a business to study His word and
hear God’s voice addressing them from His living oracles in reproof, in
instruction, or in encouragement, and His Spirit will strengthen them,
that they may, as God’s workers, advance in religious experience. Thus