Jesus In Us
by Ellen White
More recently your case has again been presented before me. I was shown that for a long
time your thoughts and feelings, your spirit and deportment, have not been of a character
to give you moral solidity, to make you a man of holy influence. After the death of your
wife, the weakness of your character was evinced in your attentions to young girls. Your
familiarity was an injury to them, making impressions on their minds unfavourable to their
spiritual advancement. The difficulty is in your heart. It was not pure. You have not had
Christ abiding in you by faith. You have not kept the way of the Lord. You have not
abstained from the very appearance of evil. Your own ways, your own feelings, your
appetites and passions, have held sway until you have placed yourself where you are now
trammelled and are inclined to please yourself irrespective of the counsel of God. 1888
520
We are so anxious, all of us, for happiness, but many rarely find it because of their
faulty methods of seeking, in the place of striving. We must strive most earnestly and
mingle all our desires with faith. Then happiness steals in upon us almost unsought. . . .
When we can, notwithstanding disagreeable circumstances, rest confidingly in His love and
shut ourselves in with Him, resting peacefully in His love, the sense of His presence will
inspire a deep, tranquil joy. This experience gains for us a faith that enables us not to
fret, not to worry, but to depend upon a power that is infinite.--Lt 57, 1897. (ML 184.)
2MCP 472
The presence of Christ alone can make men and women happy. All the common waters of
life Christ can turn into the wine of heaven. The home then becomes as an Eden of bliss;
the family, a beautiful symbol of the family in heaven. AH 28
Christ is seeking to reproduce Himself in the hearts of men; and He does this through
those who believe in Him. The object of the Christian life is fruit bearing--the
reproduction of Christ's character in the believer, that it may be reproduced in others.
COL 67
The apostles differed widely in habits and disposition. There were the publican,
Levi-Matthew, and the fiery zealot Simon, the uncompromising hater of the authority of
Rome; the generous, impulsive Peter, and the mean-spirited Judas; Thomas, true-hearted,
yet timid and fearful, Philip, slow of heart, and inclined to doubt, and the ambitious,
outspoken sons of Zebedee, with their brethren. These were brought together, with their
different faults, all with inherited and cultivated tendencies to evil but in and through
Christ they were to dwell in the family of God, learning to become one in faith, in
doctrine, in spirit. They would have their tests, their grievances, their differences of
opinion; but while Christ was abiding in the heart, there could be no dissension. His love
would lead to love for one another; the lessons of the Master would lead to the
harmonising of all differences, bringing the disciples into unity, till they would be of
one mind and one judgement. Christ is the great centre, and they would approach one
another just in proportion as they approached the centre. DA 296
He who called the fisherman of Galilee is still calling men to His service. And He is
just as willing to manifest His power through us as through the first disciples. However
imperfect and sinful we may be, the Lord holds out to us the offer of partnership with
Himself, of apprenticeship to Christ. He invites us to come under the divine instruction,
that, uniting with Christ, we may work the works of God. DA 297
"Though the Lord be high, yet hath He respect unto the lowly."[3 PS. 138:6.]
Those who reveal the meek and lowly spirit of Christ are tenderly regarded by God. They
may be looked upon with scorn by the world, but they are of great value in His sight. Not
only the wise, the great, the beneficent, will gain a passport to the heavenly courts; not
only the busy worker, full of zeal and restless activity. No; the poor in spirit, who
crave the presence of an abiding Christ, the humble in heart, whose highest ambition is to
do God's will,--these will gain an abundant entrance. They will be among that number who
have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. "Therefore are
they before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple; and He that
sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them."[1 REV. 7:15.] DA 301
The ideal of Christian character is Christlikeness. As the Son of man was perfect in
His life, so His followers are to be perfect in their life. Jesus was in all things made
like unto His brethren. He became flesh, even as we are. He was hungry and thirsty and
weary. He was sustained by food and refreshed by sleep. He shared the lot of man; yet He
was the blameless Son of God. He was God in the flesh. His character is to be ours. The
Lord says of those who believe in Him, "I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I
will be their God, and they shall be My people." [2 2 COR. 6:16.] DA 311
There were many in Christ's day, as there are to-day, over whom the control of Satan
for the time seemed broken; through the grace of God they were set free from the evil
spirits that had held dominion over the soul. They rejoiced in the love of God; but, like
the stony-ground hearers of the parable, they did not abide in His love. They did not
surrender themselves to God daily, that Christ might dwell in the heart; and when the evil
spirit returned, "with seven other spirits more wicked than himself," they were
wholly dominated by the power of evil. DA 323
The only defence against evil is the indwelling of Christ in the heart through faith in
His righteousness. Unless we become vitally connected with God, we can never resist the
unhallowed effects of self-love, self-indulgence, and temptation to sin.
DA 324
It is the love of self that brings unrest. When we are born from above, the same mind
will be in us that was in Jesus, the mind that led Him to humble Himself that we might be
saved. Then we shall not be seeking the highest place. We shall desire to sit at the feet
of Jesus, and learn of Him. We shall understand that the value of our work does not
consist in making a show and noise in the world, and in being active and zealous in our
own strength. The value of our work is in proportion to the impartation of the Holy
Spirit. Trust in God brings holier qualities of mind, so that in patience we may possess
our souls. DA 330
As through Jesus we enter into rest, heaven begins here. We respond to His invitation,
Come, learn of Me, and in thus coming we begin the life eternal. Heaven is a ceaseless
approaching to God through Christ. The longer we are in the heaven of bliss, the more and
still more of glory will be opened to us; and the more we know of God, the more intense
will be our happiness. As we walk with Jesus in this life, we may be filled with His love,
satisfied with His presence. All that human nature can bear, we may receive here. But what
is this compared with the hereafter? There "are they before the throne of God, and
serve Him day and night in His temple; and He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among
them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on
them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and
shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears from
their eyes."[1 REV. 7:15-17.] DA 331
If men placed at the head of a mission have not firmness of principle that will
preserve them from every vestige of commonness, and unbecoming familiarity with young
girls and women, after the light which has been so plainly given, let them be discharged
without a second trial. There is a depravity of the soul which leads to these careless
habits and practices, and which will far overbalance all the good such persons can do. We
are living in an age of moral debasement; the world is as a second Sodom. Those who look
for the coming of the Son of man, those who know that they are right upon the borders of
the eternal world, should set an example in harmony with their faith. Those who do not
maintain purity and holiness are not accepted of God. The true children of God have
deep-rooted principles which will not be moved by temptations, because Christ is abiding
in their hearts by faith. GCDB FEB.06,1893
If Christ is abiding in the heart, He will be in all our thoughts. Our deepest thoughts
will be of Him, His love, His purity, He will fill all the chambers of the mind. Our
affections will centre about Jesus. All our hopes and expectations will be associated with
Him. To live the life we now live by faith in the Son of God, looking forward to and
loving His appearing, will be the soul's highest joy. He will be the crown of our
rejoicing. HP 163
As Christians we ought to praise God more than we do. We ought to bring more of the
brightness of His love into our lives. As by faith we look to Jesus His joy and peace are
reflected from the countenances. How earnestly we should seek so to relate ourselves to
God that our faces may reflect the sunshine of His love! When our souls are vivified by
the Holy Spirit, we shall exert an uplifting influence upon others who know not the joy of
Christ's presence. HP 94
By prayer, by the study of His word, by faith in His abiding presence, the weakest of
human beings may live in contact with the living Christ, and He will hold them by a hand
that will never let go. MH 182
In the gift of the Spirit, Jesus gave to man the highest good that heaven could
bestow.... He saw ... that there was hope for human beings because there was power in the
divine nature successfully to contend with evil agencies.... It is by the Spirit that the
heart is made pure. Through the spirit the believer becomes a partaker of the divine
nature. Christ has given his Spirit as a divine power to overcome all hereditary and
cultivated tendencies to evil, and to impress his own character upon the church. RH MAY
19,1904
If we consent, he [Christ] can and will so identify himself with our thoughts and aims,
so blend our hearts and minds into conformity with his will, that when obeying him, we
shall but carry out our own impulses. The will, refined and sanctified, will find its
highest delight in doing his service. ST NOV.19,1896
Then is Christ a personal Saviour? We bear about in our body the dying of the Lord
Jesus, which is life and salvation and righteousness to us. Wherever we go, there is the
recollection of One dear to us. We are abiding in Christ by a living faith. He is abiding
in our hearts by our individual appropriating of faith. We have the companionship of the
divine presence, and as we realise this presence, our thoughts are brought into captivity
to Jesus Christ. Our spiritual exercises are in accordance with the vividness of our sense
of this companionship. Enoch walked with God in this way; and Christ is dwelling in our
hearts by faith when we will consider what He is to us, and what a work He has wrought out
for us in the plan of redemption. We shall be most happy in cultivating a sense of this
great gift of God to our world and to us personally.
These thoughts have a controlling power upon the whole character. I want to impress
upon your mind that you may have a divine companion with you, if you will, always.
"And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the
living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their
God, and they shall be My people." As the mind dwells upon Christ, the character is
moulded after the divine similitude. The thoughts are pervaded with a sense of His
goodness, His love. We contemplate His character, and thus He is in all our thoughts. His
love encloses us. If we gaze even a moment upon the sun in its meridian glory, when we
turn away our eyes, the image of the sun will appear in everything upon which we look.
Thus it is when we behold Jesus; everything we look upon reflects His image, the Sun of
Righteousness. We cannot see anything else, or talk of anything else. His image is
imprinted upon the eye of the soul and affects every portion of our daily life, softening
and subduing our whole nature. By beholding, we are conformed to the divine similitude,
even the likeness of Christ. To all with whom we associate we reflect the bright and
cheerful beams of His righteousness. We have become transformed in character; for heart,
soul, mind, are irradiated by the reflection of Him who loved us and gave Himself for us.
Here again there is the realisation of a personal, living influence dwelling in our hearts
by faith. TM 388