When I was about twelve years of age, the message came to our country. My mother accepted its teaching, and I, of course, went along with mother. A few years later I came to America to attend Battle Creek College; but while there I failed to reach any spiritual experience that was helpful to my inner life. I was simply a careless, care-free lad. About the age of twenty or twenty-one, I went to the university to prepare for the professional work I had decided to undertake, and during those years gave little or no thought to spiritual things. But always down deep in my heart was the knowledge that mother was praying for me, and also the conviction that the third angel's message is God's last message to the world.
I returned to my island home and entered into professional work. Knowing what was right, I attended church, and gradually the influence of it, along with a visit or two to camp meeting, led me to accept this truth more fully. The years went on. I carried various responsibilities in the church, acting for quite a period as church elder. And I endeavored to bring my family up in all that I knew to be right. But there was always a lack of spiritual power and peace in my life. I was making a conscious effort to walk in all the light that God had given, and was exacting in all the details of our teaching, could argue well on points of doctrine, was more or less active in missionary work, and found pleasure in paying my tithe faithfully. And yet there was the continual experience of failure and falling from the ideals which this message held up to me.
I had always been a more or less faithful reader of the Review, and about seven years ago read some articles written by Elder A. G. Daniells on righteousness by faith. These gave me light and help. I began to see where I had lacked, and where I was to get the power and the peace that I craved. Entrance into this provision has brought into my life a joy, a peace, and a power for Christian living, which I never experienced before. Receiving this help into my own soul, I took up a series of Sabbath talks with the church, and endeavored to give the light to them. Quite a number testified to the blessing of a new experience in their lives, and this experience has proved permanent.
From that time, while there have been failures and many things to regret and perhaps to weep over, the wonderful truth that Christ is my righteousness, that He has been made unto me wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, brings joy. And as I have confessed my sins, God has not only forgiven them, but as I have brought to Him the merits of Christ, He has placed the obedience of His Son to my account. Christ's righteousness is accepted in place of my failure, and God receives, pardons, justifies, my poor repentant, believing soul, and treats me as if I were righteous, and loves me as He loves His own Son. This wonderful fact in its fullness is really beyond human comprehension. To think that the Great Eternal could love me as He loves His own Son! Yet my faith accepts this wonderful truth, which brings into my soul the peace which passeth understanding.
Now I seek daily to walk under the covering of that perfect righteousness, and to avoid anything which would take me from under that blessed covering. Before, I asked Jesus for help, but trusted in myself; now I ask and accept help from Him. It is not a negative but a positive experience, taking Christ within and sensing that He does cover me all the time with His righteousness and His indwelling presence. I have no desire to indulge in the willing, purposeful sinning that would separate me from that covering.
Toward other members of the church, I now have a different feeling than formerly. As is usual, in the old experience, I made up for a lack of Christ's presence by seeking to be very exact in following all the letter of the truth. By these religious activities I thought to gain favor with God, at the same time being rather critical in judging my brethren and sisters if they failed to come up to the standard on this or that point of Christian living. Now I have only sympathy and love for them all; and when a critical spirit comes in, I realize that it is not of Christ, seek to put it away, and pray for those who are pursuing a wrong course. Thus it seems that more of the spirit of the Master is manifested. Had I experienced this transformation in my earlier life, I believe I might have been able to influence some to remain loyal to this message who have drifted from us.
Now, too, I thoroughly enjoy my religious experience and activities, whereas before it was an effort to keep myself up to the mark, and there was no real joy in service. And the more closely I walk with the Master, the more I see my own imperfections, and the more earnestly I seek by a more fully surrendered life to have more of His presence through His Holy Spirit. If this experience is within, it will be manifest in the outward, everyday life.
A New Zealander
