His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. Song of Solomon 5:16.

We should bring the attractiveness of Christ into our Christian service. The soft beams of the Sun of Righteousness should shine into our hearts, that we may be pleasant and cheerful and have a strong and blessed influence on all around us. The truth of Jesus Christ does not tend to gloom and sadness…. We must look away from the disagreeable to Jesus. We must love Him more, obtain more of His attractive beauty and grace of character, and cease the contemplation of others’ mistakes and errors. We should remember that our own ways are not faultless. We make mistakes again and again…. No one is perfect but Jesus. Think of Him and be charmed away from yourself, and from every disagreeable thing, for by beholding our defects faith is weakened. God and His promises are lost from sight….

O what deep, rich experiences we might gain if we were devoting all our God-given ability to seeking knowledge and spiritual strength from God! … How little we really know of sweet communion with God. How little we know the mysteries of the future life. We may know far more than we do know if all our powers are sanctified to discern the character of Christ.

There are heights for us to reach, depths of experience to sound, if we are to be the light of the world…. Let the mind expand, that you may take in the heavenly beauties of the blessed promises. Only believe in Jesus and learn in the school of the greatest Teacher the world ever knew, and His grace will act mightily upon the human intellect and heart. His teaching will give clearness to the mental vision. It will give compass to the thoughts; the soul hunger will be filled. The heart will be softened and subdued and filled with glowing love, that neither discouragement, despondency, affliction, or trial can quench. God will open to the mind’s eye His preciousness and His fullness. Then let us love and labor. I point you to Christ, the Rock of Ages.^{12Manuscript 24, 1892.}

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Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 1:13.

“Gird up the loins of your mind,” says the apostle; then control your thoughts, not allowing them to have full scope. The thoughts may be guarded and controlled by your own determined efforts. Think right thoughts and you will perform right actions. You have, then, to guard the affections, not letting them go out and fasten upon improper objects. Jesus has purchased you with His own life; you belong to Him, therefore He is to be consulted in all things as to how the powers of your mind and the affections of your heart shall be employed….

Every wrong tendency may be, through the grace of Christ, repressed, not in a languid, irresolute manner, but with firmness of purpose, with high resolves to make Christ the pattern. Let your love go out for those things that Jesus loved, and be withheld from those things that will give no strength to right impulses. With determined energy seek to learn, and to improve the character every day. You must have firmness of purpose to take yourself in hand and be what you know God would be pleased to have you.^{10The Youth’s Instructor, April 21, 1886.}

Thoughts of God and of heaven are ennobling. There is no limit to the height you may reach, for it will be like swimming in waters where there is no bottom…. There is nothing belittling in the pure religion of Christ. The gospel received will bow down the loftiness of human understanding and lay the haughtiness of man low, that God alone may be exalted. But in this it does not dwarf the intellect and cripple the energies…. True religion unfolds and calls out the mental energies. Conviction and repentance of sin, renunciation of self, and trust in the merits of the blood of Christ cannot be experienced without the individual being made more thoughtful, more intellectual, than he was before. No one will become mentally imbecile by having his attention directed to God. Connection with God is connection with all true wisdom.^{11Letter 17, 1878.}

From That I May Know Him

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Philippians 2:5.

How glorious are the possibilities set before the fallen race! Through His Son, God has revealed the excellency to which man is capable of attaining. Through the merits of Christ man is lifted from his depraved state, purified, and made more precious than the golden wedge of Ophir. It is possible for him to become a companion of the angels in glory, and to reflect the image of Jesus Christ…. Yet how seldom he realizes to what heights he could attain if he would allow God to direct his every step!

God permits every human being to exercise his individuality. He desires no one to submerge his mind in the mind of a fellow mortal. Those who desire to be transformed in mind and character are not to look to men, but to the divine Example. God gives the invitation, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” By conversion and transformation men are to receive the mind of Christ. Every one is to stand before God with an individual faith, an individual experience, knowing for himself that Christ is formed within, the hope of glory….

As our example we have One who is all and in all, the Chiefest among ten thousand, One whose excellency is beyond comparison. He graciously adapted His life for universal imitation. United in Christ were wealth and poverty; majesty and abasement; unlimited power, and meekness and lowliness, which in every soul who receives Him will be reflected….

O that we might more fully appreciate the honor Christ confers upon us! By wearing His yoke and learning of Him, we become like Him in aspiration, in meekness and lowliness, in fragrance of character, and unite with Him in ascribing praise and honor and glory to God as supreme. Those who live up to their high privileges in this life will receive an eternal reward in the life to come. If faithful we shall join the heavenly musicians in singing with sweet accord songs of praise to God and to the Lamb.^{9Signs of the Times, September 3, 1902.}

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I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. John 15:5.

Said Christ, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.” “I am the vine, ye are the branches.” “Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit” (John 15:1, 5, 2). That unpruned branch may have looked good to human eyes but the eye of One who never slumbers nor sleeps leaves it not alone to die of discouragement. The Husbandman pruneth it, that it may produce fruit unto life eternal….

Whenever professed Christians are constantly flaunting their leaves of profession before the eyes of others, there is no real fruit to the glory of God. Their religious life and experience seem satisfactory to themselves. They have exaggerated emotions, effusive expressions of fervor, and highest exaltations. Their religion consists largely in feeling and excitement. There is very little in their own souls that corresponds to their profession of faith. Self is their ideal of perfection. They value more the outward impression they make upon others than the inner life which is hidden with Christ in God.

Let everyone who would reveal Christ by being a doer of His Word, become rooted in Christ Jesus, rooted and grounded in the truth. Put away all self-assertion. Let living and acting the lessons of Christ Jesus speak of your perfect obedience to Jesus Christ….

The formation of the character must go on day by day, hour by hour. The inward working of the Holy Spirit is revealed outwardly in the appearance of fruit, ripening and perfecting to the glory of God. The inward life speaks in the outward action, in the producing of rich fruit. This is showing forth the praises of Him who hath called them out of darkness into His marvelous light. If the Lord Jesus is formed within, the hope of glory, the life will be rich in good works, corresponding with the truth which they profess to believe.^{8Manuscript 62, 1896.}

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Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. John 15:4.

“Abide in me” are words of great significance. Abiding in Christ means a living, earnest, refreshing faith that works by love and purifies the soul. It means a constant receiving of the spirit of Christ, a life of unreserved surrender to His service. Where this union exists, good works will appear. The life of the vine will manifest itself in fragrant fruit on the branches. The continual supply of the grace of Christ will bless you and make you a blessing, till you can say with Paul, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2:20).

The sacred union with Christ will unite the brethren in the most endearing bonds of Christian fellowship. Their hearts will be touched with divine compassion one for another…. Coldness, variance, strife, are entirely out of place among the disciples of Christ. They have accepted the one faith. They have joined to serve the one Lord, to endure in the same warfare, to strive for the same object, and to triumph in the same cause. They have been bought with the same precious blood, and have gone forth to preach the same message of salvation….

Those who are constantly drawing strength from Christ will possess His spirit. They will not be careless in word or deportment. An abiding sense of how much their salvation has cost in the sacrifice of the beloved Son of God will rest upon their souls. Like a fresh and vivid transaction the scenes of Calvary will present themselves to their minds and their hearts will be subdued and made tender by this wonderful manifestation of the love of Christ to them. They will look upon others as the purchase of His precious blood, and those who are united with Him will seem noble and elevated and sacred because of this connection. The death of Christ on Calvary should lead us to estimate souls as He did. His love has magnified the value of every man, woman, and child.^{7Signs of the Times, March 23, 1888.}

From That I May Know Him