Individuality
47
Utter Failure When Copying Others—The man who seeks to
pattern after any man’s character will make an utter failure. Each
person is to look to God for himself, to trade with conscientious
fidelity upon the talents God has given him. “Work out your own
salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in you
both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (
Philippians 2:12, 13
). It
is in you, brother, in you; not in another for you. You are to have an
individual experience. Then you will have rejoicing in yourself, and
not in another.—MS 116, 1898.
Each Mind Has Its Peculiar Strength—I am pained to see the
little value placed upon men whom the Lord has used and whom
He will use. God forbid that every man’s mind shall follow in the
channel of another man’s mind. One man’s mind may be, by some,
exalted as being in every degree superior, but every mind has its
peculiar weakness and its peculiar strength. One man’s mind will
supply another man’s deficiency. But if all work in the one harness and
are given encouragement to look, not to men to know their duty, but
to God, they will develop under the Holy Spirit’s guidance, and will
work in unity with their brethren. One will supply another’s lack.—Lt
50, 1897.
Not to Shape Other Minds—God has given to every man an
individual responsibility. “Work out your own salvation with fear and
trembling.” Man is not to work out any other man’s salvation. He is
not to become the transcript of any man’s mind. He is required to
act in his capacity according to the ability God has given him. No
man, whatever his experience, whatever his position, is to feel that he
accomplishes a wonderful work when he fashions and shapes the mind
[428]
of any human being after his own mind and teaches him to voice the
sentiments he may express. This has been done again and again to the
detriment of human beings.—MS 116, 1898.
Not to Be a Shadow of Others [
See chapter 29, “Dependence and
Independence.”
]—Oh, how much the workers need the spirit of Jesus
to change and fashion them as clay is molded in the hands of the potter!
When they have this spirit, there will be no spirit of variance among
them; no one will be so narrow as to want everything done his way,
according to his ideas; there will be no inharmonious feeling between
him and his brother laborers who do not come up to his standard. The
Lord does not want any of His children to be shadows of others; but