p. 245 | Possible with God

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 22, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 16.

Possible with God.

How TRULY impossible it is for the human heart to give up pleasing itself and please God. Here is where the human race is lost. How impossible for mankind of themselves to overcome themselves—their inherent natural selfishness—and become like Christ, desiring only to do the will of God. So deeply rooted in the soil of man's nature is self-love and self-gratification, that nothing but the almighty power of the Creator can eradicate them from the heart. To be free from these is to be like God; and no one is in his moral image who has not ceased to please himself, and delights in pleasing his Creator. It is a great step out of self into Christ. To be in him is to be free from the shackles of a selfish nature. What a deliverance! In Christ there is no covetousness, no idolatry, no world-love. None of the things born of the human heart can be carried with us into Christ. They must be given up and left behind when we enter in by the door into the fold. What a mistake to suppose that we are abiding in Christ, when, on account of our self-love, we are not in him! How can we abide in him unless we have been brought into him, and so made like him? Is it possible for an unsanctified, selfish soul to dwell with the One who is all sanctified, and all benevolence? What union is there between two such hearts?—Sel.