- Baptist Union | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jun 29, 1876

— Baptist Union

Failed.

Who has failed? Not those who grow richer in spirit through loss of property; who draw nearer to God as wealth melts away; who are sweetened by sorrow and mellowed by bereavement. Success is eternal. Those who gather most that endures forever excel. True life is a process of filtering and secreting, of changing the worse for the better, the cheap for the precious, the temporal for the eternal; of pruning and grafting, destroying and creating, crucifying and renewing.

The man who loses money and gains character is the richer by the trade. Cutting off is not joyous, but necessary to make room for the graft. Christ was broken that we might be joined to him, and we must be broken that Christ's character may be imparted to us.

Poison sometimes enters the wound opened for grace, and then bad is exchanged for worse, fleshly lives become more fleshly, selfishness more manifest. This is eternal loss, irreparable failure. Without faith such a doom is inevitable.

Anchored in Christ, every wind and current brings us profit; not anchored, they bring us loss. Dives was poorer than Lazarus, and lost everything, while Lazarus won eternal things. If every change makes us better and happier, we live wisely; if worse and unhappy, we are bankrupt. “All things work together for good to them that love God,” for love is the key that unlocks the treasures of God, and unlocks the heart to receive them, while selfishness is the key which locks the door of the heart, only admitting the evil and repelling the good, and ends in failure, eternal failure.