p. 16 | Be True to God

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 25, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 46.

Be True to God

To be true to one's self is a good thing if one's self be true. But, in the language of old, "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?--Not one." "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." "They are all gone out of the way." Essentially, human nature apart from God is untrue. Sin is missing the mark. It is being not true to the right line. Froward in desire and purpose, finite in knowledge and power, man is a creature of faults, and "faults" and "false" have the same root, fallo to deceive. To be true to one's self is therefore to be essentially false. It is to follow the changing moods of finite, wandering man. And yet self, self-hood, self-interest, self-exaltation, self-advancement, at the best self-effacement by self, is the root and ground work of all the false religions of the present day.

As, therefore, God is truth, and he that is in harmony with the truth is free and abides forever, it follows that he who is true to God, regardless of self and selfish interests, is working for his own eternal good. Be true to something, but let that something be eternal and essential Truth.