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120
The Ministry of Health and Healing
consequences of disloyalty. Only those who honor Him can He
honor. Our conduct in this world decides our eternal destiny. As we
sow, so we must reap. Cause will be followed by effect.
Nothing less than perfect obedience can meet the standard of
God’s requirement. He has not left His requirements indefinite. He
has asked nothing that is not necessary in order to bring us into
harmony with Him. We are to point sinners to His ideal of character
and lead them to Christ, by whose grace only can this ideal be
reached.
The Savior took upon Himself the infirmities of humanity and
lived a sinless life that we might have no fear that because of the
weakness of human nature we will be unable to overcome. Christ
came to make us “partakers of the divine nature,” and His life de-
clares that humanity combined with divinity does not commit sin.
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The Savior overcame to show us how we may overcome. Christ
met all the temptations of Satan with the Word of God. By trusting in
God’s promises, He received power to obey God’s commandments,
and the tempter could gain no advantage. To every temptation His
answer was, “It is written.” So God has given us His Word by which
to resist evil. Exceeding great and precious promises are ours, that
by these we “may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped
the corruption that is in the world through lust.”
2 Peter 1:4
.
Tell the tempted one not to look at circumstances, to the weak-
ness of self, or to the power of temptation, but to the power of God’s
Word. All its strength is ours. “Your word,” says the psalmist, “I
have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.” “By the
word of Your lips, I have kept myself from the paths of the destroyer.”
Psalm 119:11
;
17:4
.
Talk courage to the people. Lift them up to God in prayer. Many
who have been overcome by temptation are humiliated by their
failures and feel that it is useless for them to approach God, but this
thought is the enemy’s suggestion. When they have sinned and feel
that they cannot pray, tell them that then is the time to pray. They
may be ashamed and deeply humbled, but as they confess their sins,
He who is faithful and just will forgive their sins and cleanse them
from all unrighteousness.
Nothing is apparently more helpless, yet really more invincible,
than the soul that feels its nothingness and relies wholly on the