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Continuing in the Lord

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 14, 1911

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 88, No. 50.

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Continuing in the Lord

By Francis M. Wilcox

WHAT will be the results of the week of prayer for 1911? Will the blessing obtained be abiding? This, of course, is a question which every one personally must determine for himself. In each individual case it will depend on how deeply the conviction of sin takes hold of the heart, how sincere is the repentance, how thorough and far-reaching is the consecration, and how resolutely this consecration is maintained upon the altar of God’s service. Says the Word of the Lord: “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.” The blessing of the week of prayer came into our hearts through giving ourselves as little children to the Lord Jesus Christ, and receiving by faith forgiveness of sins and his blessed presence in our hearts. By these means we have received the Lord, by these means we are to walk with him in the future.
The experience of daily Christian living is not one difficult to understand. It is all involved in daily surrender to God, daily feeding on his Word, continual faith in, and application of, his promises to daily need. It is the continual maintenance in our experience of that spirit by which we received him into our hearts at the first. Our lives should show continual growth in grace. We should grow up to be strong men and women in Christ Jesus. We should develop an experience which will enable us to partake of the strong meat of the Word instead of being always fed with milk. But even in this larger and broader Christian life we can not get away from the simplicity of faith, the simplicity of daily receiving Christ Jesus the Lord. When we do this, we begin to wander away from God, and the end is defeat and failure.
O, let us in the year to come maintain our simplicity! Let us keep humble and lowly at the foot of the cross. Let us keep our consciences tender, our hearts open, our spirits willing to hear and receive and obey all that the Spirit seeks to teach us. If, in an evil hour, we fail, let us hasten to renew that sweet, intimate experience which we had with the Lord Jesus when we received him at the first. We should leave no sin unconfessed, no wrong unrighted for a single day. Every nightfall should find us at peace with God and with all our fellows so far as we can control our course of conduct. God calls us to victory over sin. He gives us the power whereby this is made possible. O, let us not live down in the valley of defeat! In Jehovah’s strength let us rise above those things which would pull us downward, triumphing over the weaknesses in our lives.Keeping ourselves upon the altar of service will enable us to do this in the year to come. The coming year may be one of glorious victory, one of walking with God. Shall we not make it so?
F. M. W.