Don’t Shun the Cross, October 12

Don’t Shun the Cross, October 12

And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? 2 Corinthians 6:15.

In the last vision given, I was shown that you were anxious that your children should have as much religion as will render them agreeable to all, without incurring the censure of any. The restraining influence of the Spirit of God has affected them but little....

When we profess to be servants of Christ we should no longer serve the world, and should not have union or fellowship with those who reject the truths which we deem sacred. I was pointed to 1 John 2:6. “He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.” “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing” (John 15:4, 5)....

You cannot measure yourselves by the world or by the opinions of others. Your only safety is to compare your position with what it would have been had your course been continually onward and upward since you professed to be Christ’s followers. Your moral character is passing in review before God. You are weighed in the balance of the sanctuary, and, if your spirituality does not correspond with the benefits and privileges conferred upon you, you are found wanting. Your path should have been growing brighter and brighter, and you bringing forth much fruit to the glory of God.

You are wanting, yet rest as unconcerned and well satisfied as though the cloud went before you by day and the pillar of fire by night as tokens of God’s favor. You reckon yourselves among the chosen, peculiar people of God, and yet have no manifestations or evidences of the power of God to save to the uttermost. You have not separated from the world as God requires His people to be separate....

The people of God are in constant warfare to maintain their peculiar and holy character, and under no condition or circumstance is the cross of Christ to be shunned or laid aside.—Letter 9, October 12, 1861, a personal testimony. [295]