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Beholding Him, February 21
Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God,
and there is none else.
Isaiah 45:22
.
In order to meet the requirement of the law, our faith must grasp the
righteousness of Christ, accepting it as our righteousness. Through union
with Christ, through acceptance of His righteousness by faith, we may be
qualified to work the works of God, to be colaborers with Christ. If you
are willing to drift along with the current of evil, and do not cooperate with
the heavenly agencies in restraining transgression in your family, and in the
church, in order that everlasting righteousness may be brought in, you do not
have faith.
Faith works by love and purifies the soul. Through faith the Holy Spirit
works in the heart to create holiness therein; but this cannot be done unless
the human agent will work with Christ. We can be fitted for heaven only
through the work of the Holy Spirit upon the heart; for we must have Christ’s
righteousness as our credentials if we would find access to the Father. In order
that we may have the righteousness of Christ, we need daily to be transformed
by the influence of the Spirit, to be a partaker of the divine nature. It is the
work of the Holy Spirit to elevate the taste, to sanctify the heart, to ennoble
the whole man.
Let the soul look to Jesus. “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away
the sin of the world” (
John 1:29
). No one will be forced to look to Christ; but
the voice of invitation is sounding in yearning entreaty, “Look and live.” In
looking to Christ, we shall see that His love is without a parallel, that He has
taken the place of the guilty sinner, and has imputed unto him His spotless
righteousness.
When the sinner sees his Saviour dying upon the cross under the curse
of sin in his stead, beholding His pardoning love, love awakes in his heart.
The sinner loves Christ, because Christ has first loved him, and love is the
fulfilling of the law. The repenting soul realizes that God “is faithful and
just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (
1
John 1:9
). The Spirit of God works in the believer’s soul, enabling him to
advance from one line of obedience to another, reaching on from strength
to greater strength, from grace to grace in Christ Jesus.—
The Review and
Herald, November 1, 1892
.
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