p. 7 | What We Really Are

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Michigan · Apr 15, 1902

What We Really Are

IT is what we really are, and not what we profess to be, which is of value in God's sight. “For the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.” We may be able to deceive men by a false reputation and an outward show of Christianity, but our very thoughts are known to God. “O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.” And this ought to be a source of encouragement to us, for it is the purpose of him who knows us so thoroughly to make us just what we ought to be, rather than to accept us as we may seem to others, or even to ourselves, to be. If our purpose is to be conformed to the image of his dear Son, he will reveal to us our lack, when we may have been deceived into the idea that we were already like him, and he will put the reality of his life of love in the place of our sham experience. Then thank the Lord for such knowledge which is united with such love!