Daily Devotional

August 25, 2017

True Repentance Involves Remorse for Sin and Forsaking It

For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death. 2 Corinthians 7:10, NKJV.

The love of God will never lead to the belittling of sin; it will never cover or excuse an unconfessed wrong. Achan learned too late that God’s law, like its Author, is unchanging. It has to do with all our acts and thoughts and feelings. It follows us, and reaches every secret spring of action. By indulgence in sin, men and women are led to lightly regard the law of God. Many conceal their transgressions from other people, and flatter themselves that God will not be strict to mark iniquity.

But His law is the great standard of right, and with it every act of life must be compared in that day when God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or evil. Purity of heart will lead to purity of life. All excuses for sin are vain. Who can plead for sinners when God testifies against them? – The Signs of the Times, April 21, 1881.

There are many professed Christians whose confessions of sin are similar to that of Achan. They will, in a general way, acknowledge their unworthiness, but they refuse to confess the sins whose guilt rests upon their conscience, and which have brought the frown of God upon His people….

Genuine repentance springs from a sense of the offensive character of sin. These general confessions are not the fruit of true humiliation of soul before God. They leave sinners with a self-complacent spirit to go on as before, until the conscience becomes hardened, and warnings that once aroused them produce hardly a feeling of danger, and after a time their sinful course appears right. All too late their sins will find them out, in that day when they shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering forever. There is a vast difference between admitting facts after they are proved, and confessing sins known only to ourselves and God. – The Signs of the Times, May 5, 1881.

Achan, the guilty party, did not feel the burden. He took it very coolly. We find nothing in the account to signify that he felt distressed. There is no evidence that he felt remorse, or reasoned from cause to effect, saying. “It is my sin that has brought the displeasure of the Lord upon the people.” … He had no idea of making his wrong right by confession of sin and humiliation of soul. – The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, Ellen G. White Comments, vol. 2, p. 997.

The confession of Achan, although too late to be available in bringing to him any saving virtue, yet vindicated the character of God in His manner of dealing with him, and closed the door to the temptation that so continually beset the children of Israel, to charge upon the servants of God the work that God Himself had ordered to be done. – Ibid.

From Devotional: To Be Like Jesus, p. 364.

Daily Devotional

August 24, 2017

Conscientious Persons Must Guard Against Being Deceived

Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Mark 14:38, NKJV.

Those professing to have new light, claiming to be reformers, will have great influence over a certain class who are convinced of the heresies that exist in the present age and who are not satisfied with the spiritual condition of the churches. With true, honest hearts, these desire to see a change for the better, a coming up to a higher standard. If the faithful servants of Christ would present the truth, pure and unadulterated, to this class, they would accept it, and purify themselves by obeying it. But Satan, ever vigilant, sets upon the track of these inquiring souls. Someone making high profession as a reformer comes to them, as Satan came to Christ disguised as an angel of light, and draws them still further from the path of right.

The unhappiness and degradation that follow in the train of licentiousness cannot be estimated. The world is defiled under its inhabitants. They have nearly filled up the measure of their iniquity; but that which will bring the heaviest retribution is the practice of iniquity under the cloak of godliness. The Redeemer of the world never spurned true repentance, however great the guilt; but He hurls burning denunciations against Pharisees and hypocrites. There is more hope for the open sinner than for this class….

This man [a pseudo reformer] and those deceived by him love not the truth but have pleasure in unrighteousness. And what stronger delusion could come upon them than that there is nothing displeasing to God in licentiousness and adultery? The Bible contains many warnings against these sins. Paul writes to Titus of those who “profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.” …

In this age of corruption when our adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour, I see the necessity of lifting my voice in warning. “Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.” There are many who possess brilliant talents who wickedly devote them to the service of Satan…. Many of them cherish impure thoughts, unholy imaginations, unsanctified desires, and base passions. God hates the fruit borne upon such a tree. Angels, pure and holy, look upon the course of such with abhorrence, while Satan exults.

Oh, that men and women would consider what is to be gained by transgressing God’s law! Under any and every circumstance, transgression is a dishonor to God and a curse to humanity. We must regard it thus, however fair its guise, and by whomsoever committed. – Testimonies for the Church 5:144-146.

From Devotional: To Be Like Jesus, p. 363.

Daily Devotional

August 23, 2017

Humanity, Allied With Divinity, Can Keep the Law

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. And John tried to prevent Him, saying, “I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me?” But Jesus answered and said to him, “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he allowed Him. Matthew 3:13-15, NKJV.

In fulfilling “all righteousness,” Christ did not bring all righteousness to an end. He fulfilled all the requirements of God in repentance, faith, and baptism, the steps in grace in genuine conversion. In His humanity Christ filled up the measure of the law’s requirements. He was the head of humanity, its substitute and surety. Human beings, by uniting their weakness to the divine nature of Christ, may become partakers of His character.

Christ came to give an example of the perfect conformity to the law of God required of Adam, the first man, down to the last person that shall live on the earth. He declares that His mission is not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it in perfect and entire obedience.

In this way He magnified the law and made it honorable. In His life He revealed its spiritual nature. He revealed to heavenly beings, to worlds unfallen, to a disobedient, unthankful, unholy world, that He fulfilled the far-reaching principles of the law. He came to demonstrate the fact that humanity, allied by living faith to divinity, can keep all God’s commandments.

The typical offerings pointed to Christ, and when the perfect sacrifice was made the sacrificial offerings were no longer acceptable to God. Type met antitype in the death of the only begotten Son of God. He came to make plain the immutable character of the law, to declare that disobedience and transgression could never be rewarded by God with eternal life. He came as a man to humanity, that humanity might touch humanity.

But in no case did He come to lessen the obligations of mortals to be perfectly obedient. He did not destroy the validity of the Old Testament Scriptures. He fulfilled that which was predicted by God Himself. He did not come to set human beings free from the law: He came to open a way by which they might obey that law and teach others to do the same. – Manuscript Releases 10:292, 293.

From Devotional: To Be Like Jesus, p. 362.

Daily Devotional

August 22, 2017

Repentant Souls Hate Sin and Love Righteousness

Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Acts 2:37, 38, NKJV.

How shall a person be just with God? How shall the sinner be made righteous? It is only through Christ that we can be brought into harmony with God, with holiness; but how are we to come to Christ? Many are asking the same question as did the multitude on the day of Pentecost, when, convicted of sin, they cried out, “What shall we do?” The first word of Peter’s answer was “Repent” (Acts 2:37, 38). At another time, shortly after, he said, “Repent …, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out” (Acts 3:19).

Repentance includes sorrow for sin and a turning away from it. We shall not renounce sin unless we see its sinfulness; until we turn away from it in heart there will be no real change in the life.

There are many who fail to understand the true nature of repentance. Multitudes sorrow that they have sinned and even make an outward reformation because they fear that their wrongdoing will bring suffering upon themselves. But this is not repentance in the Bible sense. They lament the suffering rather than the sin. Such was the grief of Esau when he saw that the birthright was lost to him forever. Balaam, terrified by the angel standing in his pathway with drawn sword, acknowledged his guilt lest he should lose his life; but there was no genuine repentance for sin, no conversion of purpose, no abhorrence of evil.

Judas Iscariot, after betraying his Lord, exclaimed, “I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood” (Matthew 27:4). The confession was forced from his guilty soul by an awful sense of condemnation and a fearful looking for of judgment. The consequences that were to result to him filled him with terror, but there was no deep, heartbreaking grief in his soul that he had betrayed the spotless Son of God and denied the Holy One of Israel…. These all lamented the results of sin, but did not sorrow for the sin itself.

But when the heart yields to the influence of the Spirit of God, the conscience will be quickened, and the sinner will discern something of the depth and sacredness of God’s holy law, the foundation of His government in heaven and on earth…. [The sinner] sees the love of God, the beauty of holiness, the joy of purity; [and] longs to be cleansed and to be restored to communion with Heaven. – Steps to Christ, 23, 24.

From Devotional: To Be Like Jesus, p. 361.

Daily Devotional

August 21, 2017

Conversion Creates New Interests and New Loves

Put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts. Ephesians 4:22, NRSV.

God now calls upon you to repent, to be zealous in the work. Your eternal happiness will be determined by the course you now pursue. Can you reject the invitations of mercy now offered? Can you choose your own way? Will you cherish pride and vanity, and lose your soul at last? The Word of God plainly tells us that few will be saved, and that the greater number even of those who are called will prove themselves unworthy of everlasting life. They will have no part in heaven, but will have their portion with Satan, and experience the second death.

Men and women may escape this doom if they will. It is true that Satan is the great originator of sin; yet this does not excuse anyone for sinning; for he cannot force any to do evil. He tempts them to it, and makes sin look enticing and pleasant; but he has to leave it to their own wills whether they will do it or not. He does not force people to become intoxicated, neither does he force them to remain away from religious meetings; but he presents temptations in a manner to allure to evil, and human beings are free moral agents to accept or refuse.

Conversion is a work that most do not appreciate. It is not a small matter to transform an earthly, sin-loving mind and bring it to understand the unspeakable love of Christ, the charms of His grace, and the excellency of God, so that souls shall be imbued with divine love and captivated with the heavenly mysteries. When they understand these things, their former life appears disgusting and hateful. They hate sin, and, breaking their heart before God, they embrace Christ as the life and joy of the soul. They renounce their former pleasures. They have a new mind, new affections, new interest, new will; their sorrows, and desires, and love are all new. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, which have heretofore been preferred before Christ, are now turned from, and Christ is the charm of the life, the crown of rejoicing.

Heaven, which once possessed no charms, is now viewed in its riches and glory; and they contemplate it as their future home, where they shall see, love, and praise the One who hath redeemed them by His precious blood. – Testimonies for the Church 2:293, 294.

From Devotional: To Be Like Jesus, p. 360.