God is determined to make something of us

Notwithstanding our talk and our short comings, there is a reality in these things, and God is determined, if possible, to make something of us. In order to do this, He has to try us and prove us, to manifest principles unto us, to develop the evils that are within ourselves, and to show us, by placing us in various positions and subjecting us to various trials, what we are,—to show us our weaknesses and follies, in order that we may be made to lean and depend upon him alone. He will try men and prove them, to see if their hearts are pure; for He designs to take a course with us that will bring out the evil; and he will touch them in that part that will develop it, for he knows what part to touch in order to make us develop that which is in us…

The light of the Holy Ghost makes manifest men’s deeds, and the Spirit of God is like a “two-edged sword, dividing the joints and the marrow,” breaking, severing, cutting, piercing, penetrating, developing, and unfolding principles that we are almost entirely ignorant of, until they come to be developed.

When you have seen your ignorance and folly, you are inclined to say, “I thought I was a smart, good, able, intelligent man; but I have found out that I am a fool, and that I can do nothing to establish righteousness upon the earth, except the Lord God helps me to do it.” When the Spirit of the living God was poured out more copiously upon you, it developed principles that were. before latent within you. That Spirit enables you to see yourselves as the Lord sees you.

John Taylor

6:166

Tagged: divine tutoring, weakness