As Was He | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Apr 9, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 15.

As Was He.

The followers of Christ Jesus are to be in this world as He was,—to be in the world and not of the world, remembering ever that they are from another sphere, "born from above." "Except a man be born from above, he can not see the kingdom of God." Therefore said our Lord, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." And therefore He prayed again, "I pray not that Thou shouldest take them from the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil one." And not being of the world, they should not love the world, nor the things that are in the world, because all these things perish, and He would have their affections set upon the things which abide forever. But they are in the world for the same purpose that He was, to win every soul whom they can to everlasting righteousness. That purpose they must ever bear in mind. They lose nothing by yielding this world, for they win eternal life and the world to come, with all its blessed fruitions of the ages,—sinless, curseless, deathless, transcendently glorious. Let them remember, tho, that they are in this world for the one sole purpose of living above the world, of living not of the world, and that they may save sinners for the world to come; and only so can they save themselves. No higher occupation, no nobler purpose, soul ever knew or can know.