May 7, 2008

  • Christ's first words to the people on the mount were words of blessing.  Happy are they, He said, who recognize their spiritual poverty, and feel their need of redemption.  The gospel is to be preached to the poor.  Not to the spiritually proud, those who clam to be rich and in need of nothing, is it revealed, but to those who are humble and contrite...

    The proud heart strives to earn salvation; but both our title to heaven and our fitness for it are found in the righteousness of Christ.  The Lord can do nothing toward the recovery of man until, convinced of his own weakness, and stripped of all self-sufficiency, he yields himself to the control of God...

    -The Desire of Ages, p.299-399