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WORLDWIDE CHURCH OF GOD
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91123
HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG
PRESIDENT and PASTOR
March 18, 1985
Dear Brethren and Co-Workers with Christ:
In just over two weeks we come to the most solemn occasion
of the year--God's Passover. Now is the time to take a quick
inventory of our lives. A man running a business takes inventory
of his stock each year. Each individual runs a very important
business--his own life--especially if he has been called out of
this world into God's earthly family, the Church of God.
The business each of us is managing is our own lives. What
we are building--and we are in the building business--is perfect
righteous character, the very character of the eternal God. But in
this business, in today's modern world, we have competitors on
every side--those in Satan's world are in the competing business of
building Satan's character.
To really understand, I say once again we must go back to
the beginning. Those of us who have been called find ourselves in
the same position that faced the first man, Adam. He had to decide
how to live his life--how to go about the business of building
character. He had two choices. (We each have the same two
choices.) One was to rely on God, the other to rely on himself.
To rely on God meant to receive all instructions and knowledge of
how to live from God, and receive the power to live God's way from
God. But he chose to rely on himself, to decide for himself the
way to live--to decide what is right and what is wrong. And he
relied on himself for the power to live the way he chose. Had he
taken of the tree of life he would have received from God both the
knowledge of the way of life (God's law of love)--and also the love
of God as the power to live that way.
All the world about us--our competition--has tried to decide
humanly for themselves what is right and what is wrong--and has
relied on self-power and will to live as humanly decided. Mankind
has built, under Satan's sway and guidance, his own society--his
own world. Mankind has organized into governments and nations.
Each government has its own law-making body--a city council, a
national Congress or Parliament or Diet.
But human beings do not know of themselves right from wrong.
For example, the United States government right now cannot decide
whether abortion is right or wrong. The Supreme Court usually
cannot unanimously agree on whether a law is constitutional--
whether it is right or wrong. Only God can tell us right from
wrong, and he does so by his law, and his law is a basic principle
that, if we apply it, will tell us unerringly what is right on any
question.
We are God's Church. The word Church means "come-out-ones."
We must come out of sin, and sin is the transgression of God's law.