p. 115 | How to Be the Lord’s by M. Wood

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 26, 1871

How to Be the Lord’s.

By M. Wood

“GREATER love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13. Thus says Jesus, “Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.” Then there are conditions whereby we may claim Jesus as our friend. What are those conditions? Keep my commandments, he says again, and you shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. John 15:10. Will Jesus be our friend if we continue in the path of sin and folly? Will Jesus love us if we trample God’s law underfoot? Let us not deceive ourselves. It will be a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Nowhere in the Bible can be found a single promise of eternal life to the transgressor of God’s holy law. It is the overcomer only that shall sit down at the marriage supper of the Lamb. “Blessed are they that do his [God’s] commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” Rev. 22:14. The commandment-keepers, and not the law-breakers, are those who shall obtain the promised reward of entering into God’s holy kingdom.

When we think of the sufferings of Christ and how much he has done and is still doing for us, it is enough to stir us to immediate action. It should cause us to awake out of sleep, and to pray more unitedly and with more faith that God may pour his Holy Spirit out upon us, that great power may be given to God’s ministering servants, that they may proclaim the third angel’s message with much power, that many precious souls may be brought to a knowledge of the truth as it is in Christ Jesus. Let us be up and doing the work of the Lord while there is yet time and opportunity.

M. Wood.

Boston, Mass.