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This Day With God

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Spiritual Salt, July 11

Ye are the salt of the earth. Matthew 5:13. TDG 201.1

God requires those who claim to believe the Bible, the standard of Christian character, to bring the Christ-likeness into all their service, that not one particle of the salt shall lose its preserving influence. The Christ-likeness is ever to be preserved. The mind and heart are to be cleansed from all sin, all unlikeness to Christ. TDG 201.2

God has duties for everyone in His service, for every church member, to perform. His people are to exalt the power of the law above human judgment. By bringing the entire being, body, soul, and spirit, into harmony with the law, they are to establish the law. TDG 201.3

God will open the way for His subjects to perform unselfish actions in all their associations, in all their business transactions with the world. By their acts of kindness and love, they are to show that they are opposed to greed and selfishness, and are representing the kingdom of heaven in our world. By self-denial, by sacrificing the gain they might obtain, they are to avoid sin, that in accordance with the laws of God's kingdom they may represent the truth in all its beauty. TDG 201.4

But if our words and actions are unChristlike; if the spirit we cherish is not helpful; if we retain the old, unsavory traits of character, studying how we may get the best of the bargain, to the disadvantage of someone else; if, unmindful that it is our duty to help one another, we care little whether we hurt and destroy a brother's prospects, we are as salt which has lost its savor—good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden underfoot as valueless. We may gain some advantage ourselves, but what help are we to the world? TDG 201.5

How can we have preservative qualities of character, as salt which retains its savor? How can we exert a saving influence? By obeying to the letter in every transaction of life, the plain commands of God; by being kind, benevolent, generous; by seeing the necessities of the cause of God, and trying to relieve them; by doing the work that must be done to represent the truth as it is in Jesus.—Letter 79, July 11, 1901, to A. G. Daniells, newly elected president of the General Conference. TDG 201.6