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Chapter 22—Courage in the Minister
Dear Brother G,
I have been shown that you were greatly deficient in your duties
as a minister. You lack essential qualifications. You do not possess a
missionary spirit. You have not a disposition to sacrifice your ease
and pleasure to save souls. There are men, women, and youth to be
brought to Christ who would embrace the truth could they have the
light presented to them. In your own vicinity there are those who
have an ear to hear.
I saw you seeking to instruct some; but at the very time when you
needed perseverance, courage, and energy, you became fainthearted,
distrustful, discouraged, and dropped the work. You desired your
own ease, and allowed an interest which might have increased, to
go down. There might have been an ingathering of souls; but the
golden opportunity passed for that time, because of your lack of
energy. I saw that unless you decide to gird on the whole armor,
and are willing to endure hardness as a good soldier of the cross of
Christ, and feel that you can spend and be spent to bring souls to
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Christ, you should give up your profession as a minister and choose
some other calling.
Your soul is not sanctified to the work. You do not take the
burden of the work upon you. You choose an easier lot than that
which is appointed to the minister of Christ. He counted not His
life dear unto Himself. He pleased not Himself, but lived for others’
good. He made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Himself
the form of a servant. It is not enough to be able to present the
arguments of our position before the people. The minister of Christ
must possess an undying love for souls, a spirit of self-denial, of
self-sacrifice. He should be willing to give his life, if need be, to the
work of saving his fellow men, for whom Christ died.
You need a conversion to the work of God. You need wisdom
and judgment to apply yourself to the work and direct your labor.
Your labors are not required among the churches. You should go
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