Chapter 6—Faith and Acceptance
As your conscience has been quickened by the Holy Spirit, you
have seen something of the evil of sin, of its power, its guilt, its woe;
and you look upon it with abhorrence. You feel that sin has separated
you from God, that you are in bondage to the power of evil. The more
you struggle to escape, the more you realize your helplessness. Your
motives are impure; your heart is unclean. You see that your life has
been filled with selfishness and sin. You long to be forgiven, to be
cleansed, to be set free. Harmony with God, likeness to Him—what
can you do to obtain it?
It is peace that you need—Heaven’s forgiveness and peace and
love in the soul. Money cannot buy it, intellect cannot procure it,
wisdom cannot attain to it; you can never hope, by your own efforts,
to secure it. But God offers it to you as a gift, “without money and
without price.”
Isaiah 55:1
. It is yours if you will but reach out your
hand and grasp it. The Lord says, “Though your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they
shall be as wool.”
Isaiah 1:18
. “A new heart also will I give you, and a
new spirit will I put within you.”
Ezekiel 36:26
.
You have confessed your sins, and in heart put them away. You
have resolved to give yourself to God. Now go to Him, and ask that He
will wash away your sins and give you a new heart. Then believe that
[50]
He does this because He has promised. This is the lesson which Jesus
taught while He was on earth, that the gift which God promises us, we
must believe we do receive, and it is ours. Jesus healed the people of
their diseases when they had faith in His power; He helped them in
the things which they could see, thus inspiring them with confidence
in Him concerning things which they could not see—leading them
to believe in His power to forgive sins. This He plainly stated in the
healing of the man sick with palsy: “That ye may know that the Son of
man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith He to the sick of
the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house.”
Matthew
9:6
. So also John the evangelist says, speaking of the miracles of
33