The Upward Look - a daily audio devotional

Bring God’s Word Unto the Very Life, July 18

Written by David DeRose MD, MPH | July 18

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. John 6:53.

The Lord Jesus is your Redeemer. Will you not appreciate the great sacrifice He has made for you? No one has any justification for departing from Bible principles...

He who is sensitive to the admonitions of the Lord will work out his own salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that it is God who is working in him, to will and to do of His good pleasure. The truth of God, abiding in the heart, brings the principles of the law of God into daily practice.

The man who consents to be deceived is the man in whose heart the truth is not abiding. To be occasionally a Christian, to be occasionally devout, is a great deception. It is living a lie. An occasional glance at the Word of God is not enough. An occasional petition to the throne of grace, a form of words, does not bring a supply of grace for the soul’s need. In order for the truth of God to regulate the life, it must be implanted in the heart. It must be brought into the inmost life.

The day will come when you will see that it does not pay to trifle with the interests of your soul, allowing it to become diseased, so inefficient that Christ declares, “Thou art neither cold nor hot... So then because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:15, 16). What does this mean? That He will no longer present the name of such a one to His Father.

Christ clothed His divinity with humanity, and came to this world to live a life free from spot or stain of sin, that human beings, by laying hold of divinity, might become partakers of the divine nature, thus escaping the corruption that is in the world through lust. To those who receive Christ as a personal Saviour, the veil that conceals the glory of God from human discernment is drawn aside. With the eye of faith they behold eternal realities.

The Word of God is to be brought into the very life. “I am that bread of life,” Christ declares. “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:48, 53, 54, 63). Study the whole of the sixth chapter of John. Strive for your soul’s sake to understand it.—Letter 253, July 18, 1904, to a longtime Adventist in business in Battle Creek, Michigan.

Reference: E.G. White, "The Upward Look," p. 213.