Conversion by M. E. Steward

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Aug 28, 1879

Conversion.

By M. E. Steward

Said an interesting lady, when urged to seek salvation, "I don't want to be deceived, I want the right kind of religion." She had just seen professed followers of Christ turn bitterly against what she saw to be truth, and she feared such a religion. But, thank God, we need not be deceived in this matter. The repentance of some is all an excited feeling. Now excitement, spiritual as well as physical, is the result of stimulant, and its counteraction is a lack of normal feeling. So when the excitement has died away, they have no more religion than those who never professed any; and often not as much, as is seen in their enmity to God's truth. Since the natural heart is so deceitful, Jer. 17:9, no wonder that those who are led alone by feeling are deceived in their religion. "He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool." Prov. 28:26. But "a good understanding have all they that do His commandments." Ps. 111:10. Blessed are they that do—not feel—his commandments. Rev. 22:14. We can enter upon this work without waiting to feel any over the matter; and, as we obey God, his Holy Spirit comes to us. Acts 5:32. It sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts. Rom. 5:5. Then it becomes easy to obey him. Matt. 11:30. And as we realize that he is the great Father of all his creatures we can have no enmity towards those for whose best good our Father constantly labors. We come to love our neighbor as ourselves when we love God supremely, and thus have within us the two great principles on which hang all the law. Matt. 22:37-40. Our whole souls come into harmony with commandment keeping, and we exclaim with David, Ps. 119:97, "Oh how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day." There's no deceit about such a religion as this. Right feeling and right doing are not so separate as some would have us believe, who cry continually, "the merits of Christ," while they say (falsely) that we trust in the law for justification. John, in his epistles, united the love of God with obeying him.

Battle Creek. M. E. Steward.