Daily Reading for Friday, July 26, 2024
Scripture: Philippians 2:12, 13
"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."
Meditation:
Reference(s):
1 The Review and Herald, August 5, 1890.
1 Christ's Object Lessons, p. 162.
"If we had to work out our salvation in our own strength, we might be discouraged, and give up the warfare; but now he says, 'I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world' (Matthew 28:20). When he has given us such an assurance of His care, should we not respond to it by giving Him our confidence?"1
"The life in which the fear of the Lord is cherished will not be a life of sadness and gloom. It is the absence of Christ that makes the countenance sad, and the life a pilgrimage of sighs. Those who are filled with self-esteem and self-love do not feel the need of a living, personal union with Christ. The heart that has not fallen on the Rock is proud of its wholeness. Men want a dignified religion. They desire to walk in a path wide enough to take in their own attributes. Their self-love, their love of popularity and love of praise, exclude the Saviour from their hearts, and without Him there is gloom and sadness. But Christ dwelling in the soul is a wellspring of joy. For all who receive Him, the very keynote of the word of God is rejoicing."2