Daily Devotional for November 21
My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations. (James 1:2)
ALL wish frequently, no doubt, that the testings were all over and that we were accepted to a place amongst the overcomers; but patience and faith and trust are to do a refining work in our hearts, making us mellow, willing and obedient to the Lord. Let the good work go on. Let us rejoice if our trials have brought us lessons of any kind that are profitable to us;--that have tended to make us stronger in character, more firm for truth and righteousness, more aware of our own weaknesses, and more on guard against the same. Even those conflicts which have resulted in only partial victories have possibly been to our advantage....Even on points in which there may have been absolute failure, the result may be a strengthening of character, a crystallization of determination for greater zeal in that direction again, and a humility of heart before the Lord in prayer. Z. '02-133 R3001:5
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Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. (Ephesians 5:14)
WHEN the believing, converted, consecrated, begotten, sleeping “new creature” has been awakened--when the eyes and ears of his understanding have been opened to see the true conditions of the world, and to realize himself as a new creature in Christ--his next duty is to “arise.” His arising from the dead signifies the activity of the new mind, the new will, in directing and controlling his mortal body. This implies effort; the putting forth of all the energy of the new creature. It requires no effort to sleep, or to lie after one gets awake; but to rise requires the exercise of every muscle. Arising is not an instantaneous act, but a process requiring one movement after another, until it is fully accomplished; so also is the arising of the new creature from the dead conditions of sin and trespass against the laws of righteousness and truth and purity; it requires his every effort, and is a work of time. Indeed all experienced Christians who have followed the apostle's injunction to arise from the dead have found that it requires days, months, years, of energetic effort to rise up above, superior to the fallen tendencies of his own flesh, common to the world of mankind. He finds that even after he has risen fully up, so that he does not wilfully practice sin, nor countenance it in any sense or degree, he still must be on his guard lest he be entrapped by the weaknesses of his mortal body; or by the allurements of the world; or by the temptations of the Adversary; and thus stumble again over some of the things of sin and death from which he had arisen by the Lord's grace. `Z'02-73` R2967:1 (Hymn 20)
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