"The 1st Law of Life" | 1888 Essential Reading
“And God spoke all these words, saying: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Ex. 20:1–3).
“And God spoke all these words, saying: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Ex. 20:1–3).
"A work of judgment begins in heaven at the same time that a special preaching of the Gospel begins on earth, and the work on earth derives a special significance from the work of judgment that is carried on in heaven." --E. J. Waggoner
CONSECRATION is simply the constant recognition of the fact that we are the Lord’s and not our own. He who learns that this is a fact and lives in the constant living presence and recognition of it as the great fact, —he is consecrated, and this is consecration.
Now the message of comfort, which God sends to His people, especially for the days immediately preceding His coming, is this, “Behold your God!” (Isa. 40:9). That means that as a necessary preparation for His coming, He wants us to know our own lack of righteousness by beholding His righteousness.
Christ has so completely identified Himself with humanity, that no act can be done to a fellow-man without being done to Him. Our treatment of our fellows shows exactly how we would treat the Lord Himself. Not only so, but it shows how we do treat Him.
We must decrease until there is nothing left of us, and He must increase until He fills all things.
The perfect Christian attitude toward every other one is that expressed by John the Baptist toward Christ: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30)
Not the man, but the message, must be made prominent. Human plans, human organizations, human agents, must all be hidden from view, that the Word of God alone may be heard and seen and felt, and may have all the glory.
It is a simple lesson. By believing it we know it is so, and this we must know in order to go on in the knowledge of the Lord, and of His word.
Not only are our promises unnecessary, but they are harmful, because they shut out the promises of God. They imply that His promises are not sufficient. Surely no one who has any just sense of the exceeding value of the promises of God will think of supplementing them by worthless promises of his own.