Be Steadfast | AdventAI

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 10, 1856

Be Steadfast.

BEWARE how you trifle with temptation. The first step from God may fix your eternal destiny. Declension generally begins in the closet. Be instant, therefore, and earnest in prayer. Make no Saviour of your feelings, resolutions, or past experiences, and have no confidence in the flesh, but abide in Christ, the living, personal, and ever-present Saviour. Be firmly persuaded that he knoweth your frame, and the things that you stand in need of, and that he will supply every want of soul and body in the fullest measure, at the best time, and in the best way, consistent with your greatest good, and therefore with your deepest peace and joy. Accept all things from him, enjoy all things in him, return all things to him, "and go on your way rejoicing." But think not that when you please to depart from Christ you may at any time please to return, or that, should you return, the loss which you have sustained by so sad a departure, can ever be so made up in this world as that it shall not be a constant deduction from that sum of character, of usefulness, and of joy, which otherwise would have been possessed by a "patient continuance in well-doing."