To Be Like Jesus

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Submit to God's Training Process, March 5

Beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness ...; but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 3:17, 18, NKJV. BLJ 73.1

There are some who desire to be a ruling power, and who need the sanctification of submission. God brings about a change in their lives, and perhaps places before them duties that they would not choose. If they are willing to be guided by Him, He will give them grace and strength to perform the objectionable duties in a spirit of submission and helpfulness. They are being qualified to fill places where their disciplined abilities will make them of the greatest service. BLJ 73.2

God trains some by bringing to them disappointment and apparent failure. It is His purpose that they shall learn to master difficulty. He inspires them with a determination to make every apparent failure prove a success. BLJ 73.3

Often men and women pray and weep because of the perplexities and obstacles that confront them. But if they will hold the beginning of their confidence steadfast unto the end, He will make their way clear. Success will come to them as they struggle against apparently insurmountable difficulties; and with success will come the greatest joy. BLJ 73.4

Many are ignorant of how to work for God, not because they need to be ignorant, but because they are not willing to submit to His training process. Moab is spoken of as a failure because, the Word declares, he “hath been at ease from his youth, ... and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, ... therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed” (Jeremiah 48:11).... BLJ 73.5

The Christian is to be prepared for the doing of a work that reveals kindness, forbearance, longsuffering, gentleness, patience. The cultivation of these precious gifts is to come into the discipline-life of Christians, that when called to service by the Master, they may be ready to exercise the energies of heart and mind in helping and blessing those who are ready to die [those who need salvation].—Manuscript Releases 8:423, 424. BLJ 73.6