At the start I have to say, I have glorious news for you.  The Lord says to us all:  “In the world ye shall have tribulation:  but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”  The blessed Savior has overcome the world for every one of his people.  We all have our tribulations; but some are better able to bear them than others.  The Apostle Paul says:  “Confirm the strong, support the weak.”  It seems strange to us that any could ever grow weak in his day, when they were as yet almost in sight of their ascended Lord, and in hearing of the echo of his voice.  But so it was then, and so it will ever be.  But God knows our feeble frame.  “As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.”  Our Lord, just before his crucifixion, said:  “I will not leave you comfortless.  I will come to you.”  This he spoke to his sorrowing disciples.  This he says to you, and to every discouraged disciple of his:  “Ye, therefore, now have sorrow, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.”  As he was preparing to wash the disciples’ feet it is said of him:  “Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.”

  “His is an unchanging love,
  Higher than the heights above;
  Deeper than the depths beneath;
  Stronger than the hand of death.”

It is impossible for one human soul to enter fully into the feelings of another, so as to realize in all the particulars of experience what the other suffers.  But the Lord knows it all.  “He that made the ear, shall he not hear?  He that made the eye, shall he not see?  He that made the heart, shall he not understand?” He consequently knows the proper remedy for all the backslidings, declensions of our first love, and all relapses into states of lukewarmness.  His prescribed remedy is repentance, in every case.  If you will take the time to read carefully the seven letters addressed to the seven churches of Asia, you will see that repentance is the remedy prescribed in every case of failure in duty, weakness of faith, coldness of love; together with all the troubles growing out of these.

Repentance is a change of mind.  It is a change from wrong feelings and affections in the soul to right feelings; from weak faith in the Lord to strong faith; from weak love for the Lord and the church to strong love.  Joy of heart and peace of mind are as sure to follow a change like this as a tree is sure to bloom in spring.  Blossoms on trees, other conditions favoring, give promise of fruits.  Your joy and peace from true repentance, like the bloom on a good tree, will give promise of a life full of good fruits.  No one need tell me that he cannot repent.  “Nothing shall be impossible unto you.”  Who says this?  Jesus says it.  Again:  “If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.”  But again he says:  “Without me ye can do nothing.”  Speaking to the Father, of his disciples, the Lord said:  “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfected into one.”