I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ; ... who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 1:4-8.
In this world we have temporal duties to perform, and in the performance of these duties we are forming characters that will either stand the test of the judgment or be weighed in the balances and found wanting. We may do the smallest duties nobly, firmly, faithfully, as if seeing the whole heavenly host looking upon us. Take a lesson from the gardener. If he wishes a plant to grow he cultivates and trims it; he gives water, he digs about its roots, plants it where the sunshine will fall upon it, and day by day he works about it; and not by violent efforts, but by acts constantly repeated, he trains the shrub until its form is perfect and its bloom is full.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ works upon the heart and mind as an educator. The continued influence of His Spirit upon the soul trains and molds and fashions the character after the divine model. Let the youth bear in mind that a repetition of acts, forms habit, and habit, character.... Is the love of Christ a living, active agent in your soul, correcting, reforming, refining you, and purifying you from your wrong practices? There is need of cultivating every grace that Jesus through His suffering and death has brought within your reach. You are to manifest the grace that has been so richly provided for you, in the small as well as in the large concerns of life.... Great truths can be brought into little things, and religion can be carried into the little as well as into the large concerns of life.
The commandments of God are exceeding broad, and the Lord is not pleased to have His children disorderly, to have their lives marred by defects and their religious experience crippled, their growth in grace dwarfed, because they persist in cherishing hereditary and cultivated deficiencies in wrong habits that will be imitated by others and thus be perpetuated. If the grace of Christ cannot remedy these defects, what then constitutes transformation of character? 38The Youth’s Instructor, September 7, 1893.
From That I May Know Him - Page 157
That I May Know Him
Thought for the Day
The only defense against evil is the indwelling of Christ in the heart through faith in His righteousness. Unless we become vitally connected with God, we can never resist the unhallowed effects of self-love, self-indulgence, and temptation to sin. We may leave off many bad habits, for the time we may part company with Satan; but without a vital connection with God, through the surrender of ourselves to Him moment by moment, we shall be overcome. Without a personal acquaintance with Christ, and a continual communion, we are at the mercy of the enemy, and shall do his bidding in the end. Desire of Ages, p. 324