The Upward Look

Today Is the Day of Salvation, February 4

For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. 2 Corinthians 6:2. UL 49.1

How thankful we all should be that it is not yet too late for wrongs to be righted! It is our solemn duty to reveal love for God not only in our words, but in deed and in truth. UL 49.2

God calls at this time for skillful workers who will always be found on the side of the Chief Worker. We must have truth in the heart, and love for Christ. “Whosoever will come after me,” He says, “let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Mark 8:34). We have each an individual work to do in denying self and in working out our own salvation with fear and trembling.... UL 49.3

Every soul who places himself on the side of Christ will be tempted with all the power of Satan's seductive influence. The grace of God can renew your heart, brace you against temptation, and give you earnest longings for the Spirit of God.... UL 49.4

God will soon vindicate His justice before the universe. His justice requires that sin shall be punished; His mercy grants that sin shall be pardoned through repentance and confession. Pardon can come only through His only begotten Son; Christ alone can expiate sin—and then only when sin is repented of and forsaken. Man has severed his connection with God, and his soul has become palsied and strengthless by the deadly poison of sin. But there was a time when the proclamation sounded through the heavenly courts, I have found a ransom! A divine life is given as man's ransom; One equal with the Father has become man's substitute. UL 49.5

So ingenious are the plans that Satan lays to deceive and pervert, that the very blessings that come to us in the divine life may be turned into snares. By the same false reasoning by which he deceived Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, he seeks to turn the very blessings which God sends for our good into snares and a curse. He seeks to lead men to use God's gifts as weapons against the Giver. UL 49.6

God gave His only begotten Son to the human race that man might become a partaker of the divine nature by accepting the remedy for sin and allowing the divine grace of Christ to work in his life. The power of divinity working in humanity can bring man into right relation with God. Fallen man, by laying hold of the divine power brought within his reach, can become one with God. Everlasting life is the blessing that Christ came to give to the world.—Letter 38, February 4, 1907, to a former worker faltering in the Battle Creek pantheism crisis. UL 49.7