Page 19 - How to Be a Victorious Christian - eBook

Can we go on being unresponsive to Jesus' love? Can we permit Him to stand
waiting outside our lives, patiently seeking an invitation to come in? Shall we not
open our hearts and minds and allow Him earnestly and candidly, but
compassionately, to unfold to us our needs? Shall we not accept from Him the only

remedy that is available for our spiritual ills?

If we do not, we shall be cheating ourselves of forgiveness, the removal of the sense
of guilt, of peace, of eternity. What rational being could choose such loss?

*Texts credited to N.E.B. are from The New English Bible. © The Delegates of
the Oxford University Press and the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press

1970. Reprinted by permission.

The Irreducible Minimum

LOVE is the dominant characteristic of God, and love is outgoing. God's love
reaches out to bestow its warmth upon the whole of His creation.

But love desires response, and God yearns for a willing return of His love from all
His creatures. Sadly, He has not received that response from many of mankind for
six thousand years, for our race has been in rebellion against its Creator.

During all that time God has been trying to bring humanity back into the warm circle
of His love. But He has been able to do so for only a very few, relatively. Many have

not been interested. And some who have been interested have never entered into the
circle, because they were not willing to meet the conditions God had to require.

He has made His requirements as few and easy as possible. But requirements there
must be. For to accept those who would not accept them would mean that sin, which
must be excluded at all costs (Christ gave His all that sin might be excluded, and yet

mankind be saved), would be preserved and contaminate heaven. That cannot be!

So God says to you and me, "I want, above anything else, to have you in My
kingdom. I gave My Son that you might be there. But the very stability, the
preservation, of My kingdom demands that I make certain minimum requirements.

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