A
New Year's Day Letter
By
Ellen G. White
(Written
to Dr. and Mrs. J. H. Kellogg, January 1, 1886.)
I wish you a happy
new year. The old year with its burden of record has passed
into eternity. Now let every thought, every feeling be that
of remembrance of God's love. Let us gather up one token after
another. . . .
The evidence we have
of God's care and love for us is expressed in the lessons Christ
gave to His disciples upon the things in nature. . . . The eye
is not to be fastened upon deformity, upon the curse, but upon
the riches of the grace of Christ that has been provided so
abundantly, that we may live in this world, and act our part
in the great web of humanity, and yet not be of the world. As
pilgrims, as strangers looking for the bright things of God,
the joy that is set before us, seeking a city whose builder
and maker is God, and by beholding the provisions made for us,
the mansions Jesus has gone to prepare for us, talking of the
blessed home, we forget the annoyances and the fretting cares
of this life. We seem to breathe in the very atmosphere of that
better, even the heavenly country. We are soothed, we are comforted;
we are more than this, we are joyful in God.
We could not know
that gracious purposes of God toward us, but for the promises,
for it is from them alone we learn what He has prepared for
those who love Him. As the flowers in God's wise economy are
constantly drawing the properties from earth and air to develop
into the pure and beautiful buds and flowers and give forth
their fragrance to delight the senses, so shall it be with us.
We draw from God's
promises all that peace, that comfort, that hope that will develop
in us the fruits of peace, joy, and faith. And by bringing these
promises into our own life we bring them always into the lives
of others. Then let us appropriate these promises to ourselves.
. . . They are like the precious flowers in the garden of God.
They are to awaken our hope and expectation, and lead us to
a firm faith and reliance upon God. They are to strengthen us
in trouble and teach us precious lessons of trust in God. He
in these precious promises draws back from eternity and gives
us a glimpse of the far more exceeding and eternal weight of
glory. Let us then be quiet in God. Let us calmly trust in Him
and praise Him that He has shown us such revelations of His
will and purposes that we shall not build our hopes in this
life but keep the eye upward to the inheritance of light and
see and sense the amazing love of Jesus.
Published
in The Upward Look, p. 15.
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