21 June 2025
God’s Word to us is: “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith.” We must thoroughly examine ourselves to see what manner of spirit we are treasuring. How wonderful for us if we could but learn to speak courteously, kindly, quietly and gently, even under the most trying circumstances. We must learn to control our words, our thoughts and our imagination.
Often we are all too aware of our great deficiency, and even though we read the Bible, pray, and resolutely desire to change, we are alarmed to see that we make no progress. Why is this? The reason is we do not go deep enough. We do not seek for a thorough conversion of the soul, which involves complete surrender to God that His Holy Spirit may work in us. Pride, selfishness, bad temper, impatience, and every other defect of character proceeds from the unrenewed heart; but, by the grace of Christ, the heart can be refined, softened, and ennobled, and our words, thoughts, imagination and actions will bear witness to the glorious fact. When we surrender our soul entirely to God, we will rely firmly upon His promises, and along with earnest prayer and determined effort on our part, God will give us grace and strength from on high and our characters will be transformed.
If we come close to Jesus and seek to adorn our characters with noble thoughts, actions, and godly conversation, our feet will be kept from straying into the wrong path. We must keep ourselves in the love of God and fervently pray. If we conduct ourselves as if we are in the immediate presence of God, He will save us from yielding to temptation, and will keep us pure, undefiled and spotless all the days of our life. Let us be confident in God and stay firm until the end; then our ways will be established in God, and what He has begun in us by His grace, He will finish gloriously.