Believing in His Guidance

You are accepted in the Beloved. I have had the most earnest desire that you should perfect a Christian character, not in your own strength, but in the strength and in the virtue and righteousness of Christ. The donation of the Holy Spirit was the greatest gift God could bestow upon finite man. This is free to all and in this gift there could be no computation; this endowment specially signalized the enthronement of the only begotten Son of God in His mediatorial kingdom. In this, the gift of the Comforter, the Lord God of heaven demonstrates to man the perfect reconciliation which He had effected between Himself and men. “Which hope,” says the apostle, “we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil, whither the forerunner is for us entered” (Hebrews 6:19, 20).

Has not God said He would give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him? And is not this Spirit a real, true, actual Guide? Some men seem afraid to take God at His word, as though it would be presumption in them. They pray for the Lord to teach us and yet are afraid to credit the pledged word of God and believe we have been taught of Him. So long as we come to our heavenly Father humbly and with a spirit to be taught, willing and anxious to learn, why should we doubt God’s fulfillment of His own promise? You must not for a moment doubt Him and dishonor Him thereby.

When you have sought to know His will, your part in the operation with God is to believe that you will be led and guided and blessed in the doing of His will. We may mistrust ourselves lest we misinterpret His teachings, but make even this a subject of prayer, and trust Him, still trust Him to the uttermost, that His Holy Spirit will lead you to interpret aright His plans and the working of His providence.—Manuscript Releases 6:223, 224.
Ye Shall Receive Power p. 114
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Prayer Requests
—-Please Pray for a very dear friend of ours she is a newly widow and she is taking it very hard. we fear for her life please pray that she will discover the real Jesus and not the surface one. she has a heart of Gold always helping others . Cecelia
—-E and children continue to need your prayers. R
—-Please pray for me and my sons. We are in extreme danger. Connie
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Dear Friends,
In my grandparents’ yard was a very old and neglected apple tree. The apples were small and not good for eating. I can still remember the smell of those rotting apples as they fell and lay untouched below the tree. Because of its age, unusually large size, and the neglect it suffered; it was hollow inside. To look at it, you would never know that is was hollow. It was still alive with green leaves and was still producing small, sour, wormy fruit.
Often I would gaze at that tree and think about the many warnings of my grandparents to stay away from it. I especially liked a story that my mother had once told me about that old tree. Before I was born, she had been standing under that tree talking to my dad. Suddenly, he grabbed her roughly and held her tightly while running down the driveway a little way. She was quite upset with him and about to get angry, when he stopped and pointed toward where she had been standing. As my mother looked, she saw a large part of that apple tree had split and had come crashing down right where she had been standing. He explained that as they had been talking, he had heard a cracking noise. Instantly he knew what it was. He knew that she was in danger and reacted quickly. Her anger was replaced by gratitude.
Even though that ancient apple tree could have split again, my grandparents never asked the landlady to cut it down. They just warned me never to play under the tree. The warnings only made the tree more fascinating, more desireable.
How often we have old, rotten “apple trees” in our lives. We fear them but allow them to take root and grow in our heart even though they should have been gotten rid of years ago. They produce rotten, wormy fruit in our lives that does us no good. That fruit of sin leads to disappointment and death. Often, we wish we had the victory over that sin that is so deeply ingrained within us, but we have allowed that old, familiar sin to remain inside our hearts so long that it has grown large and difficult to deal with.
How often we try the pleasures of this world to forget that they soon become a rotten “apple tree” of sin. Paul speaks of the fruit of a heart that has been allowed the heart to become overtaken by the wormy fruit of unrighteousness.” Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” Gal 5:19-21 Jeremiah adds, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” He, then, gives the answer, “I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.” Jer 17:9,10
How much we need the Master Gardener to cut down that “rotten tree” that is ever growing within us and producing fruit to our destruction. “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.” James 4:6-10 “For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.” “Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Isa 57:15; 1:16-18
Let us come to our Dear Saviour that He may help us to cut down the old, “rotten apple tree” that we have allowed to grow within our heart for so many years, that we may be free from the fruit of iniquity that we have produced for so long.
Rose