Chapter 15—What It Means to be a Laborer with
God
“Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded. In all things
showing thyself a pattern of good works; in doctrine showing uncor-
ruptness, gravity, sincerity, sound speech, that can not be condemned;
that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil
thing to say of you.”
Where sincere piety is lacking, where daily communion with God
is neglected, the teacher in the Sabbath-school will be dry and tedious
in his manner of teaching. His words will have no power to reach the
hearts of his pupils. To be laborers together with God means a great
deal more than merely to go to Sabbath-school, and attend the services
of the church, and take part in the work of teaching, and in bearing
testimony in the social service. To be a laborer together with God
means that your heart is drawn out in strong desire for the salvation
of the sinful souls for whom Christ has died. It means that you are
filled with solicitude for the work, that you are ever planning to make
your instruction interesting, to devise ways that you may draw with
every intrusted power of your nature along the lines in which Christ is
drawing, that souls may be won to His service and be bound to Him
by the cords of His infinite love.
Laborers together with God do not feel like shrinking from sacred
obligations; but for Christ’s sake they are willing to endure toil, to
suffer privation and reproach. They are willing to meet with repulses,
though this is hard to bear and humiliating to human pride. But the
laborer together with God will remember that Jesus bore shame and
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insult, rejection and death, that He might save those who were lost.
Every part of the varied labor in the harvest field means sacrifice and
self-denial. It means that the time usually spent in matters of minor
importance should be spent in searching the Scriptures, that you may
know how to labor successfully in the work to which you are appointed.
It means that you must become acquainted with the Spirit of God. It
means that you must do much praying, and have much serious thought
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