Limitless Heights to Reach

[Daily Devotional]

Limitless Heights to Reach 

     Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the
end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of
Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 1:13.  

     "Gird up the loins of your mind," says the apostle; then control
your thoughts, not allowing them to have full scope. The thoughts may be
guarded and controlled by your own determined efforts. Think right
thoughts and you will perform right actions. You have, then, to guard
the affections, not letting them go out and fasten upon improper
objects. Jesus has purchased you with His own life; you belong to Him,
therefore He is to be consulted in all things as to how the powers of
your mind and the affections of your heart shall be employed. . . .  

     Every wrong tendency may be, through the grace of Christ,
repressed, not in a languid, irresolute manner, but with firmness of
purpose, with high resolves to make Christ the pattern. Let your love go
out for those things that Jesus loved, and be withheld from those things
that will give no strength to right impulses. With determined energy
seek to learn, and to improve the character every day. You must have
firmness of purpose to take yourself in hand and be what you know God
would be pleased to have you.  

     Thoughts of God and of heaven are ennobling. There is no limit to
the height you may reach, for it will be like swimming in waters where
there is no bottom. . . . There is nothing belittling in the pure
religion of Christ. The gospel received will bow down the loftiness of
human understanding and lay the haughtiness of man low, that God alone
may be exalted. But in this it does not dwarf the intellect and cripple
the energies. . . . True religion unfolds and calls out the mental
energies. Conviction and repentance of sin, renunciation of self, and
trust in the merits of the blood of Christ cannot be experienced without
the individual being made more thoughtful, more intellectual, than he
was before. No one will become mentally imbecile by having his attention
directed to God. Connection with God is connection with all true wisdom.


>From That I May Know Him - Page 135