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Enjoyment of the Truth, January 27

Teach me thy way, O Lord; I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name. Psalm 86:11. OHC 33.1

Say with your whole heart, “I will walk in Thy truth.” Every resolution expressed in the fear of God will give strength to purpose and to faith. It will tend to stimulate and to humble, to strengthen and confirm. “I will walk in thy truth.” Truth deserves our confidence none the less because the world is flooded with fables. Because error and counterfeit are in circulation it only evidences the fact that there is truth, genuine truth, somewhere.... OHC 33.2

It is not enough for us to hear the truth only. God requires of us obedience. “Blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.” Luke 11:28. “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” John 13:17. OHC 33.3

We may walk in the enjoyment of the truth. It need not be to us a yoke of bondage, but a consolation, a message to us of glad tidings of great joy, animating our hearts and causing us to make melody in our hearts unto God. Through patience and comfort of the Scriptures we have hope. The Christian hope is not gloomy, comfortless. Oh, no, no. It does not shut us up in a prison of doubts and fears. The truth makes free those who love and are sanctified through it. They walk in the glorious liberty of the sons of God.52Letter 8, 1873. OHC 33.4

We who claim to believe the truth should reveal its fruits in our words and character. We are to be far advanced in a knowledge of Jesus Christ, in the reception of His love for God and for our neighbor, in order to have the sunlight of heaven shining in our daily life. Truth must reach down to the deepest recesses of the soul, and cleanse away everything unlike the spirit of Christ, and the vacuum be supplied by the attributes of His character who was pure and holy and undefiled, that all the springs of the heart may be as flowers, fragrant with perfume, a sweet-smelling savor, a savor of life unto life.53Manuscript 109, 1897. OHC 33.5

It is truth enshrined in the soul that makes one a man of God.54Manuscript 1a, 1890. OHC 33.6