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Pray Earnestly for Christian Character, January 29
Until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son
of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.
Ephesians 4:13
, NRSV.
We can never see our Lord in peace, unless our souls are spotless. We must bear
the perfect image of Christ. Every thought must be brought into subjection to the
will of Christ. As expressed by the great apostle, we must come into “the measure
of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” We shall never attain to this condition
without earnest effort. We must strive daily against outward evil and inward sin if
we would reach the perfection of Christian character.
Those who engage in this work will see so much to correct in themselves, and
will devote so much time to prayer and to comparing their characters with God’s
great standard, the divine law, that they will have no time to comment and gossip
over the faults or dissect the characters of others. A sense of our own imperfections
should lead us to humility and earnest solicitude lest we fail of everlasting life.
The words of inspiration should come home to every soul: “Examine yourselves,
whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves,
how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?”
If the professed people of God would divest themselves of their self-
complacency and their false ideas of what constitutes a Christian, many who now
think they are in the path to heaven would find themselves in the way of perdition.
Many proud-hearted professors [of religion] would tremble like an aspen leaf in
the tempest could their eyes be opened to see what spiritual life really is. Would
that those now reposing in false security could be aroused to see the contradiction
between their profession of faith and their everyday demeanor.
To be living Christians, we must have a vital connection with Christ.... When the
affections are sanctified, our obligations to God are made primary, everything else
secondary. To have a steady and ever-growing love for God, and a clear perception
of His character and attributes, we must keep the eye of faith fixed constantly on
Him. Christ is the life of the soul. We must be in Him and He in us, else we are
sapless branches.—
The Review and Herald, May 30, 1882
.
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