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revealed in your own characters with firmness, yet with the meekness
and simplicity of Christ. Through much prayer you must labor for
souls, for this is the only method by which you can reach hearts. It
is not your work, but the work of Christ who is by your side, that
impresses hearts....
Be determined that you will not be at variance among yourselves,
but will have the peace of Christ in your own hearts, and then it will be
an easy work to have it brought into your own families. But when the
garden of the heart is neglected, poisonous weeds of pride, self-esteem,
self-sufficiency, obtain a rank growth. We individually must watch
unto prayer.
The characters we form will speak in the home life. If there is
sweet accord in the home circle, the angels of God may minister in
the home. If there is wise management at home, kindness, meekness,
forbearance, combined with firm principles, then be assured that the
husband is a house band; he binds the family together with holy cords
and presents them to God, binding himself with them upon the altar of
God. What a light shines forth from such a family!
That family, properly conducted, is a favorable argument to the
truth, and the head of such a family will carry out the very same kind
of work in the church as is revealed in the family. Wherever severity,
harshness, and want of affection and love are exhibited in the sacred
circle of the home, there will most assuredly be a failure in the plans
and management in the church. Unity in the home, unity in the church,
reveals Christ’s manner and grace more than sermons and arguments....
Is the truth, the advanced truth we have received, producing in our own
hearts the fruits of patience, faith, hope, charity, and thus leaving its
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saving influence upon human minds, revealing that we are branches of
the true Vine because we bear rich clusters of fruit?—
Letter 6b, 1890
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To Have Root in Themselves—It is not in God’s purpose that the
church shall be sustained by life drawn from the minister. They are
to have root in themselves. The gospel news, the message of warn-
ings, the third angel’s message, is to be voiced by church members.—
Manuscript 83, 1897
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Everyone who claims to be a Christian is to bear the responsibility
of keeping himself in harmony with the guidance of the Word of God.
God holds each soul accountable for following, for himself, the pattern