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Counsels on Stewardship
be surprised that the Lord withholds His blessing, when His gifts are
selfishly perverted and misapplied?
God is constantly bestowing upon you the blessings of this life; and
if He asks you to dispense His gifts by helping the various branches of
His work, it is for your own temporal and spiritual interest to do so,
and thus acknowledge God as the giver of every blessing. God, as the
Master Worker, cooperates with men in securing the means necessary
for their sustenance; and He requires them to cooperate with Him in
the salvation of souls. He has placed in the hands of His servants
the means wherewith to carry forward His work in home and foreign
missions. But if only half the people do their duty, the treasury will
not be supplied with the necessary funds, and many parts of the work
of God must be left incomplete.—
The Review and Herald, December
23, 1890
.
Answering Christ’s Prayer for Unity
Never can the church reach the position that God desires it to
reach until it is bound up in sympathy with its missionary workers.
Never can the unity for which Christ prayed exist until spirituality
is brought into missionary service, and until the church becomes an
agency for the support of missions. The efforts of the missionaries
[48]
will not accomplish what they should until the church members in
the home field show, not only in word, but in deed, that they realize
the obligation resting on them to give these missionaries their hearty
support.
God calls for workers. Personal activity is needed. But conversion
comes first; seeking for the salvation of others, next.—
The Review
and Herald, September 10, 1903
.
Empty the Heart of Selfishness
It is to be regretted that the church today feels so little inclination
to express thanksgiving to the Lord for enriching her with His grace,
for giving her His talents of means, that she may have wherewith to
supply His treasury.
The barren portions of the Lord’s vineyard cry to God, saying,
“Men have neglected to care for me.” By allowing their fellow beings