Selfishness and Self-centeredness
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dignified without vain self-confidence; you may be condescending and
yielding without sacrificing self-respect or individual independence,
and your life may be of great influence with those in the higher as well
as the lower walks of life.—
Testimonies for the Church 3:506
(1875).
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Self-centeredness Fosters Disease (a personal message)—Your
efforts should be earnest and thorough and persevering in order for
you to succeed. You must learn as a follower of Christ to control every
expression of fretfulness and passion. Your mind is too much centered
upon yourself. You talk too much of yourself, of your infirmities of
body.
Your own course is daily bringing upon you disease through your
own wrong habits. The apostle entreats his brethren to consecrate their
bodies to God. “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of
God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable
unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to
this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that
ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of
God” (
Romans 12:1, 2
).—
Letter 27, 1872
.
Self-centeredness Affects Perception (another personal mes-
sage)—You can help us, my brother, in many ways. But I am commis-
sioned of the Lord to say to you that you are not to be self-centered.
Take heed how you hear, how you understand, and how you appropri-
ate the Word of God. The Lord will bless you in drawing in even lines
with your brethren. Those whom He has sent forth to proclaim the
third angel’s message have been working in unison with the heavenly
intelligences. The Lord does not lay upon you a burden to proclaim a
message that will bring discord into the ranks of believers. I repeat,
He is not leading anyone by His Holy Spirit to frame a theory that will
unsettle faith in the solemn messages He has given His people to bear
to our world.—
Manuscript 32, 1896.
(
Selected Messages 2:115
).
The Grace of Self-forgetfulness to Be Taught Every Child—
One of the characteristics that should be especially cherished and
cultivated in every child is that self-forgetfulness which imparts to the
life such an unconscious grace. Of all excellences of character this is
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one of the most beautiful, and for every true lifework it is one of the
qualifications most essential.—
Education, 237
(1903).
Self-forgetfulness the Basis of True Greatness—It was not
enough for the disciples of Jesus to be instructed as to the nature