46
The Adventist Home
eternal life is steep and rugged. Take no additional weights to retard
your progress
A Home Where Shadows Are Never Lifted—The heart yearns
for human love, but this love is not strong enough, or pure enough,
or precious enough to supply the place of the love of Jesus. Only in
her Saviour can the wife find wisdom, strength, and grace to meet the
cares, responsibilities, and sorrows of life. She should make Him her
strength and her guide. Let woman give herself to Christ before giving
herself to any earthly friend, and enter into no relation which shall
conflict with this. Those who would find true happiness must have the
blessing of Heaven upon all that they possess and all that they do. It is
disobedience to God that fills so many hearts and homes with misery.
My sister, unless you would have a home where the shadows are never
lifted, do not unite yourself with one who is an enemy of God
The Christian’s Reasoning—What ought every Christian to do
when brought into the trying position which tests the soundness of
[68]
religious principle? With a firmness worthy of imitation he should say
frankly: “I am a conscientious Christian. I believe the seventh day
of the week to be the Sabbath of the Bible. Our faith and principles
are such that they lead in opposite directions. We cannot be happy
together, for if I follow on to gain a more perfect knowledge of the will
of God, I shall become more and more unlike the world and assimilated
to the likeness of Christ. If you continue to see no loveliness in Christ,
no attractions in the truth, you will love the world, which I cannot love,
while I shall love the things of God, which you cannot love. Spiritual
things are spiritually discerned. Without spiritual discernment you
will be unable to see the claims of God upon me, or to realize my
obligations to the Master whom I serve; therefore you will feel that I
neglect you for religious duties. You will not be happy; you will be
jealous on account of the affections which I give to God, and I shall
be alone in my religious belief. When your views shall change, when
your heart shall respond to the claims of God, and you shall learn to
love my Saviour, then our relationship may be renewed.”
The believer thus makes a sacrifice for Christ which his conscience
approves, and which shows that he values eternal life too highly to
13
Ibid., 5:363
.
14
Ibid., 5:362, 363
.