1880 48 The foundation of Christianity is that I pass through death. If I held myself always for dead, Satan would have no hold on me. Why have you sinned? You have let the flesh act; you have acted as a child of Adam. A child of God sins not.
Fragment on Acts 13:9.
1880 160 The secret of power and joy in service is to be in the line of the present work of God by the Spirit. We need to judge the energy by which we are walking or serving. Sometimes people judge themselves about the act, the object, and the motive, but do not judge the energy by which they are acting; but if it is only natural energy, it soon falls down into the world or the flesh, and all the peace and joy and power will be gone. The basis may be right, object all right, but the energy that of nature instead of the Holy Ghost. The way of the Spirit is through death and resurrection.