p. 3 | Growing in Grace by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 9, 1909

Growing in Grace

By Editor

Editorial

“But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.”

THE life of the Christian is a life of progress and advancement. He grows in grace as he grows in a knowledge of God. By study of the Word, by communion with the Spirit, by his own experience and the experiences of his fellows, he learns continually more and more of God’s ways and workings. This increasing knowledge, if applied practically in the life, will transform its possessor into the image and likeness of the divine character.

A GROWING Christian is a working Christian. Indeed, the manifestation of activity, energy, and growth is the proof of life. In the spiritual as well as in the physical life stagnation is death, and cessation of effort the precursor of dissolution. But this need not mean forced exercise of the spiritual energies. Labor born of love needs no compulsion. Exercise is the necessary complement of life, as works is of faith. The love of Christ constrained the apostle Paul. In consequence, the sense of duty was overshadowed by the higher motive of privilege in Christian labor. Better to work from a sense of duty than not to work at all; better to do right solely because it is right, and because we feel that God requires it, than to do evil; but best of all is to come so near to God and so drink in of his life, and so sense his love and goodness, that right-doing and all Christian labor shall be but the expression of our love and gratitude in small return for the unnumbered benefits received. Then shall we joy in Christian service, and our labor shall ascend to the Father, as an odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable and well-pleasing. “To do good and communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” Heb. 13:16.