" Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. Romans 12:2 {ML 318.1}
There is nothing that can keep you away from God but a rebellious will. {ML 318.2}
The will is the governing power in the nature of man. If the will is set right, all the rest of the being will come under its sway. The will is not the taste or the inclination, but it is the choice, the deciding power, the kingly power, which works in the children of men unto obedience to God or to disobedience. {ML 318.3}
You will be in constant peril until you understand the true force of the will. You may believe and promise all things, but your promises and your faith are of no account until you put your will on the right side. If you will fight the fight of faith with your will power, there is no doubt that you will conquer. {ML 318.4}
Your part is to put your will on the side of Christ. When you yield your will to His, He immediately takes possession of you, and works in you to will and to do of His good pleasure. Your nature is brought under the control of His Spirit. Even your thoughts are subject to Him. If you cannot control your impulses, your emotions, as you may desire, you can control the will, and thus an entire change will be wrought in your life. When you yield up your will to Christ, your life is hid with Christ in God. It is allied to the power which is above all principalities and powers. You have a strength from God that holds you fast to His strength; and a new life, even the life of faith, is possible to you. {ML 318.5}
You can never be successful in elevating yourself, unless your will is on the side of Christ, cooperating with the Spirit of God. Do not feel that you cannot; but say, "I can, I will." And God has pledged His Holy Spirit to help you in every decided effort. {ML 318.6} "
The will is the governing power in the nature of man. If the will is set right, all the rest of the being will come under its sway. The will is not the taste or the inclination, but it is the choice, the deciding power, the kingly power, which works in the children of men unto obedience to God or to disobedience. {ML 318.3}
You will be in constant peril until you understand the true force of the will. You may believe and promise all things, but your promises and your faith are of no account until you put your will on the right side. If you will fight the fight of faith with your will power, there is no doubt that you will conquer. {ML 318.4}
Your part is to put your will on the side of Christ. When you yield your will to His, He immediately takes possession of you, and works in you to will and to do of His good pleasure. Your nature is brought under the control of His Spirit. Even your thoughts are subject to Him. If you cannot control your impulses, your emotions, as you may desire, you can control the will, and thus an entire change will be wrought in your life. When you yield up your will to Christ, your life is hid with Christ in God. It is allied to the power which is above all principalities and powers. You have a strength from God that holds you fast to His strength; and a new life, even the life of faith, is possible to you. {ML 318.5}
You can never be successful in elevating yourself, unless your will is on the side of Christ, cooperating with the Spirit of God. Do not feel that you cannot; but say, "I can, I will." And God has pledged His Holy Spirit to help you in every decided effort. {ML 318.6} "
When the car door is unlocked and you sit behind the wheel,. and put the key in the ignition, turn it till the engine comes on, put the car in gear and leave the driveway - you have just done in everyday life - an imitation of the Bible's principles of overcoming and obtaining and fulfilling why you were created.
God offers what He built. Psalms 100:3 Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
You went to the owner of the car and obtained it by buying it on the owner's terms. You did not create the car from scratch, someone else did and you depended upon their work and faithfulness and design ability. With the purchase of the car you also bought the keys, and use them every time you drive the car.
Ecclesiastes 7:29 Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.
Psalms 32:
7 ¶ Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah.
8 I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye.
9 Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee.
8 I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye.
9 Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee.
When the market is miles away and it means hours of walking in the rain or heat or cold and only bring back the few thing you can carry, what makes the difference in long weariness and trouble and a simple errand that gets you out of the house for a short while ? The car. The quiet but powerful fast convenient thing waiting in your driveway.
This is a progressing parable using your car to tell a deeper more important story.
What is the key - when it's more that the story of the car ? The key symbolizes what things ?
Something that is needed to unlock a locked thing, something to activate the power held in reserve that does not come from you, power waiting to be used.
"The perishing sinner may say: "I am a lost sinner; but Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost. He says, 'I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance' (Mark 2:17). I am a sinner, and He died upon Calvary's cross to save me. I need not remain a moment longer unsaved. He died and rose again for my justification, and He will save me now. I accept the forgiveness He has promised." [SELECTED MESSAGES, BOOK 1, P. 392.] {NL 40.1}
He who repents of his sin and accepts the gift of the life of the Son of God, cannot be overcome. Laying hold by faith of the divine nature, he becomes a child of God. He prays, he believes. When tempted and tried, he claims the power that Christ died to give, and overcomes through His grace. This every sinner needs to understand. He must repent of his sin, he must believe in the power of Christ, and accept that power to save and to keep him from sin. How thankful ought we to be for the gift of Christ's example! [IBID., P. 224.] {NL 40.2}
He who repents of his sin and accepts the gift of the life of the Son of God, cannot be overcome. Laying hold by faith of the divine nature, he becomes a child of God. He prays, he believes. When tempted and tried, he claims the power that Christ died to give, and overcomes through His grace. This every sinner needs to understand. He must repent of his sin, he must believe in the power of Christ, and accept that power to save and to keep him from sin. How thankful ought we to be for the gift of Christ's example! [IBID., P. 224.] {NL 40.2}
A life in Christ is a life of restfulness. There may be no ecstasy of feeling, but there should be an abiding, peaceful trust. Your hope is not in yourself; it is in Christ. Your weakness is united to His strength, your ignorance to His wisdom, your frailty to His enduring might. . . . {NL 40.3}
We should not make self the center and indulge anxiety and fear as to whether we shall be saved. All this turns the soul away from the Source of our strength. Commit the keeping of your soul to God, and trust in Him. Talk and think of Jesus. Let self be lost in Him. Put away all doubt; dismiss your fears. Say with the apostle Paul, "I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). Rest in God. He is able to keep that which you have committed to Him. If you will leave yourself in His hands, He will bring you off more than conqueror through Him that has loved you. [STEPS TO CHRIST, PP. 70-72.] {NL 40.4}
We should not make self the center and indulge anxiety and fear as to whether we shall be saved. All this turns the soul away from the Source of our strength. Commit the keeping of your soul to God, and trust in Him. Talk and think of Jesus. Let self be lost in Him. Put away all doubt; dismiss your fears. Say with the apostle Paul, "I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). Rest in God. He is able to keep that which you have committed to Him. If you will leave yourself in His hands, He will bring you off more than conqueror through Him that has loved you. [STEPS TO CHRIST, PP. 70-72.] {NL 40.4}
" It is contrition and faith and love that enable the soul to receive wisdom from heaven. Faith working by love is the key of knowledge, and everyone that loveth "knoweth God." 1 John 4:7. {DA 139.3} contrition faith love = 3 parts that are the whole key to unlock us toward God.
"Our hearts may be filled with all the fullness of God; but there is something for us to do. We must not pet our faults and sins, but put them away, and make haste to set our hearts in order. When this is done, let us take the key of faith, and unlock the storehouse of God's rich blessings. . . . There is an infinite fullness to draw from; and we have the promise of our divine Lord, "According to your faith be it unto you." We may win the crown of life, a place at God's right hand, and as we enter the pearly gates, hear the words, sweeter than any music, "Well done, good and faithful servant . . . : enter thou into the joy of thy lord" (Matthew 25:23) (Signs of the Times, Aug. 18, 1887). {LHU 266.6}
"The darkness of the evil one encloses those who neglect to pray. The whispered temptations of the enemy entice them to sin; and it is all because they do not make use of the privileges that God has given them in the divine appointment of prayer. Why should the sons and daughters of God be reluctant to pray, when prayer is the key in the hand of faith to unlock heaven’s storehouse, where are treasured the boundless resources of Omnipotence?—(Steps to Christ, 93–95.) {Pr 24.4}
Found any keys yet ? 
Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. Ephesians 3:8. {TMK 7.1}
In the Word of God there are rich mines of truth that we may spend our whole lifetime in exploring, and yet we shall find that we have only begun to view their precious stores. . . . There are unsearchable riches for us. It will take us all eternity to comprehend the riches of the glory of God and of Jesus Christ. . . . {TMK 7.2}
Christ has said: "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink" (John 7:37). Have you exhausted the fountain? No, for it is inexhaustible. Just as soon as you feel your need, you may drink, and drink again. The fountain is always full. And when you have once drunk of that fountain you will not be seeking to quench your thirst from the broken cisterns of this world; you will not be studying how you can find the most pleasure, amusement, fun, and frolic. No, because you have been drinking from the stream which makes glad the city of God. Then your joy will be full, for Christ will be in you. {TMK 7.3}
Jehovah Immanuel--He "in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," in whom dwells "all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:3, 9)--to be brought into sympathy with Him, to know Him, to possess Him, as the heart opens more and more to receive His attributes; to know His love and power, to possess the unsearchable riches of Christ, to comprehend more and more "what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God" (Ephesians 3:18, 19)--"this is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord" (Isaiah 54:17). {TMK 7.4}
There is no need for us to hunger, there is no need for us to thirst, while the storehouse of heaven is open for us and the key is given into our possession. What is the key? Faith, which is the gift of God. Unlock the storehouse; take of its rich treasures. {TMK 7.5}
" It is contrition and faith and love that enable the soul to receive wisdom from heaven. Faith working by love is the key of knowledge, and everyone that loveth "knoweth God." 1 John 4:7. {DA 139.3} contrition faith love = 3 parts that are the whole key to unlock us toward God.
"Our hearts may be filled with all the fullness of God; but there is something for us to do. We must not pet our faults and sins, but put them away, and make haste to set our hearts in order. When this is done, let us take the key of faith, and unlock the storehouse of God's rich blessings. . . . There is an infinite fullness to draw from; and we have the promise of our divine Lord, "According to your faith be it unto you." We may win the crown of life, a place at God's right hand, and as we enter the pearly gates, hear the words, sweeter than any music, "Well done, good and faithful servant . . . : enter thou into the joy of thy lord" (Matthew 25:23) (Signs of the Times, Aug. 18, 1887). {LHU 266.6}
Contrition goes right along with enmity for sin < Genesis 3:15 enmity implanted and received bruises Satan's head in court when he is judged > + repentance < "repent ye" Matthew 3:2; Mark 1:15; Luke 13:3, 5; Acts 3:19 > + affections set on the right things that come from above < Colossians 3:2 > + implanted and decided upon loyalty < Deuteronomy 30:2-6; example of Job - Job 31:1 > ( implanted gifts that can be asked for and received )
Faith ( saving faith = trust + desire + decision + action ) < faith / love Galatians 5:6 ; James 2:17, 20, 26 ; Romans 10:17 ; Joshua 24:15; 1 Chronicles 12:32 > stuff that a person can ask God for then start acting as if already there, because God commanded the person to get them from Him and already promised to send them.
Love - what God accounts as being the real thing that from Him motivates and empowers everything in Heaven and from Heaven. < Matthew 6:10; Luke 11:2; John 17:26 > Something it is His highest joy to implant and impart.
