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The Desire of Ages
witness that His word was with power. He spoke the word of God,
as He had spoken through all the prophets and teachers of the Old
Testament. The whole Bible is a manifestation of Christ, and the
Saviour desired to fix the faith of His followers on the word. When His
visible presence should be withdrawn, the word must be their source
of power. Like their Master, they were to live “by every word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
Matthew 4:4
.
As our physical life is sustained by food, so our spiritual life is
sustained by the word of God. And every soul is to receive life from
God’s word for himself. As we must eat for ourselves in order to
receive nourishment, so we must receive the word for ourselves. We
are not to obtain it merely through the medium of another’s mind. We
should carefully study the Bible, asking God for the aid of the Holy
Spirit, that we may understand His word. We should take one verse,
and concentrate the mind on the task of ascertaining the thought which
God has put in that verse for us. We should dwell upon the thought
until it becomes our own, and we know “what saith the Lord.”
In His promises and warnings, Jesus means me. God so loved the
world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that I by believing in Him,
might not perish, but have everlasting life. The experiences related
in God’s word are to be my experiences. Prayer and promise, precept
and warning, are mine. “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live;
yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the
flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave
Himself for me.”
Galatians 2:20
. As faith thus receives and assimilates
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the principles of truth, they become a part of the being and the motive
power of the life. The word of God, received into the soul, molds the
thoughts, and enters into the development of character.
By looking constantly to Jesus with the eye of faith, we shall be
strengthened. God will make the most precious revelations to His
hungering, thirsting people. They will find that Christ is a personal
Saviour. As they feed upon His word, they find that it is spirit and life.
The word destroys the natural, earthly nature, and imparts a new life
in Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit comes to the soul as a Comforter. By
the transforming agency of His grace, the image of God is reproduced
in the disciple; he becomes a new creature. Love takes the place of
hatred, and the heart receives the divine similitude. This is what it