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Truth a Precious Treasure, January 28
Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and
understanding.
Proverbs 23:23
.
The truth is precious; it has wrought important changes upon the
life and character, exerting a masterly influence over words, deportment,
thoughts, and experience.
The religion of Jesus Christ never degrades the receiver. If it finds
men and women earthly, common, coarse, unkindly in words, harsh in
speech, selfish and self-caring, truth received in the heart commences its
purifying, refining process. In words, in dress, in all our habits, there is
seen reformation and those things that please God. Then all the world
may see its influence in the transforming process.
Truth refines the taste and sanctifies the judgment. It elevates and
ennobles, and is silently and constantly doing its leavening work till the
whole being is cleansed and made a vessel unto honor, under the operation
of the Holy Spirit, to make the receiver of truth fit for the society of pure
and sinless angels....
A salvation which was purchased for humanity at such an infinite cost
should be held in the most precious vessel by every believer. That which
is of such value should ever be highly regarded and not cheapened and
made common by the coarseness and roughness retained by those who
receive the truth.
Truth as it is in Jesus is not cold and lifeless and formal.... Truth is
full of warmth, of evidence from the presence of Jesus....
We have a message to bear to the world. It involves a cross. The
truths are unpleasant because they require self-denial and self-sacrifice.
Then how essential that those who bear the truth, as they speak the truth
faithfully, shall by every word and act show that the love of Christ moves
them. Truth is ... always lovely, and those who live the truth as it is in
Jesus should study how to present the truth so that its loveliness may
appear.
Treasure the truth above everything; sell it not for any price.
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