Going Through Samaria

143:2.1The Mas­ter was a per­fected spec­i­men of hu­man self-con­trol. When he was re­viled, he re­viled not; when he suf­fered, he ut­tered no threats against his tor­men­tors; when he was de­nounced by his en­e­mies, he sim­ply com­mit­ted him­self to the righ­teous judg­ment of the Fa­ther in heaven.

143:2.2At one of the evening con­fer­ences, An­drew asked Je­sus: “Mas­ter, are we to prac­tice self-de­nial as John taught us, or are we to strive for the self-con­trol of your teach­ing? Wherein does your teach­ing dif­fer from that of John?” Je­sus an­swered: “John in­deed taught you the way of righ­teous­ness in ac­cor­dance with the light and laws of his fa­thers, and that was the re­li­gion of self-ex­am­i­na­tion and self-de­nial. But I come with a new mes­sage of self-for­get­ful­ness and self-con­trol. I show to you the way of life as re­vealed to me by my Fa­ther in heaven.

143:2.3“Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, he who rules his own self is greater than he who cap­tures a city. Self-mas­tery is the mea­sure of man’s moral na­ture and the in­di­ca­tor of his spir­i­tual de­vel­op­ment. In the old or­der you fasted and prayed; as the new crea­ture of the re­birth of the spirit, you are taught to be­lieve and re­joice. In the Fa­ther’s king­dom you are to be­come new crea­tures; old things are to pass away; be­hold I show you how all things are to be­come new. And by your love for one an­other you are to con­vince the world that you have passed from bond­age to lib­erty, from death into life ev­er­last­ing.

143:2.4“By the old way you seek to sup­press, obey, and con­form to the rules of liv­ing; by the new way you are first trans­formed by the Spirit of Truth and thereby strength­ened in your in­ner soul by the con­stant spir­i­tual re­new­ing of your mind, and so are you en­dowed with the power of the cer­tain and joy­ous per­for­mance of the gra­cious, ac­cept­able, and per­fect will of God. For­get not—it is your per­sonal faith in the ex­ceed­ingly great and pre­cious promises of God that en­sures your be­com­ing par­tak­ers of the di­vine na­ture. Thus by your faith and the spirit’s trans­for­ma­tion, you be­come in re­al­ity the tem­ples of God, and his spirit ac­tu­ally dwells within you. If, then, the spirit dwells within you, you are no longer bond­slaves of the flesh but free and lib­er­ated sons of the spirit. The new law of the spirit en­dows you with the lib­erty of self-mas­tery in place of the old law of the fear of self-bond­age and the slav­ery of self-de­nial.

143:2.5“Many times, when you have done evil, you have thought to charge up your acts to the in­flu­ence of the evil one when in re­al­ity you have but been led astray by your own nat­u­ral ten­den­cies. Did not the Prophet Jeremiah long ago tell you that the hu­man heart is de­ceit­ful above all things and some­times even des­per­ately wicked? How easy for you to be­come self-de­ceived and thereby fall into fool­ish fears, divers lusts, en­slav­ing plea­sures, mal­ice, envy, and even venge­ful ha­tred!

143:2.6“Sal­va­tion is by the re­gen­er­a­tion of the spirit and not by the self-righ­teous deeds of the flesh. You are jus­ti­fied by faith and fel­low­shipped by grace, not by fear and the self-de­nial of the flesh, al­beit the Fa­ther’s chil­dren who have been born of the spirit are ever and al­ways mas­ters of the self and all that per­tains to the de­sires of the flesh. When you know that you are saved by faith, you have real peace with God. And all who fol­low in the way of this heav­enly peace are des­tined to be sanc­ti­fied to the eter­nal ser­vice of the ever-ad­vanc­ing sons of the eter­nal God. Hence­forth, it is not a duty but rather your ex­alted priv­i­lege to cleanse your­selves from all evils of mind and body while you seek for per­fec­tion in the love of God.

143:2.7“Your son­ship is grounded in faith, and you are to re­main un­moved by fear. Your joy is born of trust in the di­vine word, and you shall not there­fore be led to doubt the re­al­ity of the Fa­ther’s love and mercy. It is the very good­ness of God that leads men into true and gen­uine re­pen­tance. Your se­cret of the mas­tery of self is bound up with your faith in the in­dwelling spirit, which ever works by love. Even this sav­ing faith you have not of your­selves; it also is the gift of God. And if you are the chil­dren of this liv­ing faith, you are no longer the bond­slaves of self but rather the tri­umphant mas­ters of your­selves, the lib­er­ated sons of God.

143:2.8“If, then, my chil­dren, you are born of the spirit, you are for­ever de­liv­ered from the self-con­scious bond­age of a life of self-de­nial and watch­care over the de­sires of the flesh, and you are trans­lated into the joy­ous king­dom of the spirit, whence you spon­ta­neously show forth the fruits of the spirit in your daily lives; and the fruits of the spirit are the essence of the high­est type of en­joy­able and en­nobling self-con­trol, even the heights of ter­res­trial mor­tal at­tain­ment—true self-mas­tery.”