Just Jesus and You

Chapter 1—Beginnings

A Young Adult’s Encounter with Ellen White ... on Salvation

Ellen White makes the topics of salvation and the love of Christ, who died for me, both simple and personal. When I open The Desire of Ages, He’s right there. He’s so real, so able to save.AC 11.1

When I read what Ellen White says about the topic of salvation, it’s like no other author. What she writes has to do with me personally. It’s my life she’s talking about—my feelings and experiences. I recognize them. This is a salvation of experience, one I can touch, because it’s about Jesus. I know she knew Jesus personally. Whatever any other writer knew, it doesn’t compare with this.AC 11.2

Other writers may have something important to say, they may try to share the right ideas, but in the pages of The Desire of Ages Ellen White is trying to share salvation through Jesus. And the best thing is she makes me want it! I want it with all my heart.AC 11.3

In her writings she talks about salvation in the real world—my world. It’s not about only ideas. It’s not a beehive of rhetoric. The intellectual part has its place, but when I get up in the morning to face my day spiritually, what I want needs to be clear, vivid, and personal. I find that in her writings. My strength to save myself is like “ropes of sand,” as she puts it. I know she’s right because I’ve felt those ropes crumble in my hands. What she describes I can touch, for it’s a theology of flesh and blood. It’s about Jesus! Ellen White paints a picture of a Christ as someone who is real, who is able to save me from myself.AC 11.4

Most of all, I know she has written because she wanted me to be saved and not because she wanted me to believe her ideas. And I do want to be saved, with all my heart. I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.AC 12.1

Laura, age 24AC 12.2