HOW WE MAY KNOW by T.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 20, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 12.

HOW WE MAY KNOW.

By T.

A GREAT many persons have questionings about the genuineness of their conversion. The Lord gives us a great many means by which we may really know this, and one of them is in the text which says: “We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.” 1 John 3:14.

The individual who is truly converted has become a partaker of the love of God. The one who has the love of God in his heart knows the experience of loving those whom our heavenly Father loved so much as to give His only-begotten Son to die for them. True conversion takes away hatred altogether. It is impossible for the one who is drinking in the Spirit of Christ to also hold the spirit of hate. “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” 1 John 4:8.

If we are professing the name of Christ and find that we still harbor hatred against some of our fellow-men, we should not cease till we have that root of bitterness removed. We should plead with the Master for more of His gentle Spirit, so that we may be able to love men, even tho they may hate us and be doing all manner of evil against us. We should learn how to pray the prayer of Christ,—“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

Christianity is not a beautiful sentiment to dream about in some moment of idle fancifulness. It is a beautiful life of active love and power; and the one who is truly connected with Christ is striving all the time to attain to the great perfection that is for every one of us in Christ Jesus. We can never find it in ourselves; we must always look for it in Christ. Therefore we should never study ourselves to find goodness there. Any goodness that we may possess is always mixed with much that is defective; hence if we look to ourselves for goodness we will not see the perfect model that should be ever kept before the mind in order for us to gain the real heights of true righteousness.

Then let us study the Master, and Him alone. Let us pray to Him that He may fill us completely with His love, so that we may truly love humanity, and thus know for a surety that we have passed from death unto life. T.