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God Works On Plan Of Multiplication, March 27
Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God,
and of Jesus our Lord.
2 Peter 1:2
.
If we would develop a character which God can accept, we must form correct
habits in our religious life. Daily prayer is as essential to growth in grace, and
even to spiritual life itself, as is temporal food to physical well-being. We should
accustom ourselves to lift the thoughts often to God in prayer. If the mind wanders,
we must bring it back; by persevering effort, habit will finally make it easy. We
cannot for one moment separate ourselves from Christ with safety. We may have
His presence to attend us at every step, but only by observing the conditions which
He Himself has laid down.
Religion must be made the great business of life. Everything else should be
held subordinate to this. All our powers, of soul, body, and spirit, must be engaged
in the Christian warfare. We must look to Christ for strength and grace, and we
shall gain the victory as surely as Jesus died for us.
We must come nearer to the cross of Christ. Penitence at the foot of the cross is
the first lesson of peace we have to learn. The love of Jesus—who can comprehend
it? Infinitely more tender and self-denying than a mother’s love! If we would
know the value of a human soul, we must look in living faith upon the cross, and
thus begin the study which shall be the science and the song of the redeemed
through all eternity. The value of our time and our talents can be estimated only
by the greatness of the ransom paid for our redemption....
Sanctification is a progressive work. The successive steps are set before us in
the words of Peter: “Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue
knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to
patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness
charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall
neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (
2
Peter 1:5-8
)....
Here is a course by which we may be assured that we shall never fall. Those
who are thus working upon the plan of addition in obtaining the Christian graces
have the assurance that God will work upon the plan of multiplication in granting
them the gifts of His Spirit.... By divine grace, all who will may climb the
shining steps from earth to heaven, and at last, “with songs and everlasting joy”
(
Isaiah 35:10
), enter through the gates into the city of God.—
The Sanctified Life,
93-95
.
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