The Secret of Strength
By Editor
HAVE you met with such defeats in the Christian warfare that you have become almost discouraged? Do not give up. Still there is hope. You must learn the secret of strength in the conflict with evil. We need often to be reminded of the words of Jesus, “Without me ye can do nothing,” and then to accept the strength offered to us in Christ, “I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me.” Although Jesus withdrew his bodily presence from the earth, yet his last promise was, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” We must realize the power of his presence with us. “This is certain, that Christ never intended by the translation of his body to heaven to deprive earth of any of his energy or power or virtue.” The gospel of Christ, “the power of God unto salvation,” is the good news that Christ is a present power in every one that believeth. “Christ, with all his infinite resources, with all his love, all his glory, is brought nigh to the individual believer, and made a part of his being by the gift of the indwelling Christ.” When this truth becomes experience, when we have learned how to avail ourselves of heaven’s provision for our weakness, then we have found the secret of strength. “Not I, but Christ, my every need supplying,
Not I, but Christ, my strength and health to be:
Christ, only Christ, for body, soul, and spirit,
Christ, only Christ, here and eternally.” THE word “apostle” means one who is sent. So does the word “missionary.” An apostle is a missionary. The twelve apostles were twelve missionaries. “The real truth in regard to ‘apostolic succession,’ so belabored and beclouded in futile disputes, now comes out in clear and convincing light. If the New Testament is permitted to speak on this question with final authority, the genuine apostolic succession is a missionary succession. Of the first admission to it after Jesus’ time, we read that to supply the vacancy created by the apostasy of Judas, Matthias was chosen, ‘and he was numbered among the twelve apostles [missionaries].’ Many a humble missionary on whose head no bishop’s hands have ever been laid, is numbered in this succession. Outside of it have been many mitered and throned prelates, ‘princes of the church.’” This is a practical basis for the settlement of a vexed question. Those individuals who give themselves most devotedly to missionary work have the best right to be regarded as in the apostolic succession. That church which is primarily a missionary church has the best claim to the title of an apostolic church. Let every Seventh-day Adventist do his best to prove that we have the true apostolic succession by showing himself to be a genuine missionary.