With God At Dawn

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R

rrcn

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#1
Oct 15, 2023
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#1
I thought I’d post a my morning devotional for viewing or comment.

We Must Work Out Our Own Salvation, January 24
What Is God's Purpose for Us?

Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, ... work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Philippians 2:12, 13.

The Christian life is a battle and a march. But the victory to be gained is not won by human power. The field of conflict is the domain of the heart. The battle which we have to fight—the greatest battle that was ever fought by man—is the surrender of self to the will of God, the yielding of the heart to the sovereignty of love. The old nature, born of blood and of the will of the flesh, can not inherit the kingdom of God. The hereditary tendencies, the former habits, must be given up.

He who determines to enter the spiritual kingdom will find that all the powers and passions of an unregenerate nature, backed by the forces of the kingdom of darkness, are arrayed against him. Selfishness and pride will make a stand against anything that would show them to be sinful. We can not, of ourselves, conquer the evil desires and habits that strive for the mastery. We can not overcome the mighty foe who holds us in his thrall. God alone can give us the victory. He desires us to have the mastery over ourselves, our own will and ways. But He can not work in us without our consent and cooperation. The divine Spirit works through the faculties and powers given to man. Our energies are required to cooperate with God.

The victory is not won without much earnest prayer, without the humbling of self at every step. Our will is not to be forced into cooperation with divine agencies, but it must be voluntarily submitted.—Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing, 142.
 
BillyBob

BillyBob

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Dec 20, 2023
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#2
The writings of EGW are just not for me. Her words sound nice but generally are not in line with scripture.
 
R

rrcn

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Oct 15, 2023
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#3
BillyBob said:
The writings of EGW are just not for me. Her words sound nice but generally are not in line with scripture.
Click to expand...
How many of her books have you read? Her main theme was the love of Jesus.
 
R

rrcn

Active member
#4
Oct 15, 2023
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#4
Here is another quote that I think of often:

The cross of Christ will be the science and the song of the redeemed through all eternity. In Christ glorified they will behold Christ crucified. Never will it be forgotten that He whose power created and upheld the unnumbered worlds through the vast realms of space, the Beloved of God, the Majesty of Heaven, He whom cherub and shining seraph delighted to adore,—humbled himself to uplift fallen man; that he bore the guilt and shame of sin, and the hiding of his Father's face, till the woes of a lost world broke his heart, and crushed out his life on Calvary's cross. That the Maker of all worlds, the Arbiter of all destinies, should lay aside his glory, and humiliate himself from love to man, will ever excite the wonder and adoration of the universe. As the nations of the saved look upon their Redeemer, and behold the eternal glory of the Father shining in his countenance; as they behold his throne, which is from everlasting to everlasting, and know that his kingdom is to have no end, they break forth in rapturous song, “Worthy, worthy is the Lamb that was slain, and hath redeemed us to God by his own most precious blood!” GC88 651
 
R

rrcn

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Oct 15, 2023
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#5
Bible religion is not made up of theological systems, creeds, theories, and tradition, for then it would not remain a mystery. The worldly would understand it through their own natural abilities. But religion, Bible religion, has a practical, saving energy, elements proceeding wholly from God—a personal experience of God's power transforming the entire man. 1888 376.3
 
JohnDB

JohnDB

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Jan 16, 2021
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rrcn said:
How many of her books have you read? Her main theme was the love of Jesus.
Click to expand...
I thought it was what she termed as "personal vice". She mentions it in almost every blog entry.
 
JohnDB

JohnDB

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Jan 16, 2021
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And...the title caught my attention because Sunrise is a theme throughout all of the Old Testament.

It is part of the creation account and runs through Daniel and other later prophets and all points in between.

Sunrise/dawn is the magic hour....and it's extraordinarily long in Israel as the sun refracts across the desert after peaking above the Himalayas. With Israel below sea level it is light long before the sun actually crests above the Golan Heights....
But once it does a fan blade attached to the thermometer dial is necessary as the temperature rises very very quickly. And the fanning action can help you stay cool.
 
R

rrcn

Active member
#8
Oct 15, 2023
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#8
JohnDB said:
I thought it was what she termed as "personal vice". She mentions it in almost every blog entry.
Click to expand...
Do you have a reference? I can’t find anything concerning “ personal vice”.
 
JohnDB

JohnDB

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Jan 16, 2021
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rrcn said:
Do you have a reference? I can’t find anything concerning “ personal vice”.
Click to expand...
Then you must be reading the edited versions and not originals. It literally was in EVERY blog post she made. A lot of SDA materials (expensive and often rare) are edited extensively by the leadership before publication for consumption by the congregants.

You are going to have to look to secular sources for complete and unabridged works. (Which if found will be exactly what they claim....complete and unabridged)
 
R

rrcn

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#12
Oct 15, 2023
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#12
BillyBob said:
Every thing I have read by her contains much fluff, and no substance!
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This is from Desire of Ages:
“The spotless Son of God hung upon the cross, His flesh lacerated with stripes; those hands so often reached out in blessing, nailed to the wooden bars; those feet so tireless on ministries of love, spiked to the tree; that royal head pierced by the crown of thorns; those quivering lips shaped to the cry of woe. And all that He endured—the blood drops that flowed from His head, His hands, His feet, the agony that racked His frame, and the unutterable anguish that filled His soul at the hiding of His Father's face—speaks to each child of humanity, declaring, It is for thee that the Son of God consents to bear this burden of guilt; for thee He spoils the domain of death, and opens the gates of Paradise. He who stilled the angry waves and walked the foam-capped billows, who made devils tremble and disease flee, who opened blind eyes and called forth the dead to life,—offers Himself upon the cross as a sacrifice, and this from love to thee. He, the Sin Bearer, endures the wrath of divine justice, and for thy sake becomes sin itself.
In silence the beholders watched for the end of the fearful scene. The sun shone forth; but the cross was still enveloped in darkness. Priests and rulers looked toward Jerusalem; and lo, the dense cloud had settled over the city and the plains of Judea. The Sun of Righteousness, the Light of the world, was withdrawing His beams from the once favored city of Jerusalem. The fierce lightnings of God's wrath were directed against the fated city.
Suddenly the gloom lifted from the cross, and in clear, trumpetlike tones, that seemed to resound throughout creation, Jesus cried, “It is finished.” “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.” A light encircled the cross, and the face of the Saviour shone with a glory like the sun. He then bowed His head upon His breast, and died.
Amid the awful darkness, apparently forsaken of God, Christ had drained the last dregs in the cup of human woe. In those dreadful hours He had relied upon the evidence of His Father's acceptance heretofore given Him. He was acquainted with the character of His Father; He understood His justice, His mercy, and His great love. By faith He rested in Him whom it had ever been His joy to obey. And as in submission He committed Himself to God, the sense of the loss of His Father's favor was withdrawn. By faith, Christ was victor.. DA 756.3
 
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