Your ShelfYour Projects

NO ALTERNATIVE

17%

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 15, 1879

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 53, No. 20.

Read the full edition

NO ALTERNATIVE.

By GEO. D. BALLOU.

To him who has espoused the cause of the Master, there is opened an infinite field of spiritual development and progress. The Christian never reaches so great a moral elevation that he does not see heights of spiritual excellence towering beyond. “Forward” is the Christian’s watchword. His very life consists in action, and that, too, in something besides a repetition of the forms and ceremonies of religious worship. There is no treadmill process about Christianity; when it approximates to such a condition, it soon ceases to be Christianity.
One whose heart and mind have been subdued by divine grace and love, is continually inquiring, “What more can I do to honor my Creator, who gives me life and every blessing? and how can I show my love for Jesus, who has shown me the way of life by his pure and holy example, and by his death and resurrection has opened a way of redemption, so that I may live with him in immortal glory?” To such a one no duty which the word of God makes plain is ever irksome; but with cheerful, joyous gladness will he walk in the ever-increasing light of divine truth.
How differently the unconverted receive this heavenly light. Said one recently who had heard the claims of God’s holy Sabbath presented, “What shall I do? I wish I never had heard that sermon.” Oh! sad will be the condition of such, as they meet the fearful doom which awaits the self-willed and unrepentant. The remark of another who was present on the same occasion suggested these thoughts. As he returned home, on meeting his companion he said, “There is no other way, wife; we have either got to keep the Sabbath or stop being Christians.” He thus saw that to follow Christ is to keep the Father’s commandments; and he yielded obedience, as all honest professors of Christianity will, when they plainly see the claims of God’s law.
Oh that there was, in all those who call themselves Christians, more of the spirit of Him who said, “I came not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me”!
GEO. D. BALLOU.