We Expect Too Little, April 10

According to your faith be it unto you. Matthew 9:29.HP 107.1

Faith is the medium of connection between human weakness and divine power.... We must seek to have our faith strengthened. The iniquity that abounds must not for one moment lessen our faith and love for God or weaken our trust in His sure promises, else some mighty storm of temptation will sweep us away from the true foundation. We have a great work to do, and we need greater faith.... Through communion with God our faith will be strengthened, and the trial of our faith may prove our signal triumph.^{23Letter 24, 1888.}HP 107.2

There is a real work to be wrought in us. Constantly we must submit our will to God's will, our way to God's way.... By beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are actually changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. We expect too little, and we receive according to our faith. We are not to cling to our own ways, our own plans, our own ideas.... Besetting sins are to be conquered and evil habits overcome. Wrong dispositions and feelings are to be rooted out, and holy tempers and emotions begotten in us by the Spirit of God....HP 107.3

Faith, living faith, we must have, a faith that works by love and purifies the soul. We must learn to take everything to the Lord with simplicity and earnest faith. The greatest burden we have to bear in this life is self. Unless we learn in the school of Christ to be meek and lowly, we shall miss precious opportunities and privileges for becoming acquainted with Jesus. Self is the most difficult thing we have to manage. In laying off burdens, let us not forget to lay self at the feet of Christ.HP 107.4

Hand yourself over to Jesus, to be molded and fashioned by Him, that you may be made vessels unto honor. Your temptations, your ideas, your feelings, must all be laid at the foot of the cross. Then the soul is ready to listen to words of divine instruction. Jesus will give you to drink of the water which flows from the river of God. Under the softening and subduing influence of His Spirit your coldness and listlessness will disappear. Christ will be in you a well of water, springing up into everlasting life.^{24Letter 57, 1887.}HP 107.5