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Burden Bearers in the Church
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of the Lord. You have thought and cared too much for yourselves.
Set your hearts in order, and then be in earnest. Inquire: “Lord, what
wilt Thou have me to do?” God requires of you an earnest reaching
out after Him. He bids you search your own hearts diligently to
discover all there that prevents your bringing forth much fruit, and
that which will remain. The reason you possess no more of the Spirit
of God is that you do not cheerfully bear the cross of Christ. In the
last vision I saw that you were deceived in regard to the strength of
your love for this world. The cares of this life and the deceitfulness
of riches choke the word, and you become unfruitful. God requires
us to bear much fruit. He will not give commands without giving
with them power for their performance. He will not do our part of
the work, neither does He require that we do His. It is God that
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worketh in us, but we must work out our own salvation with fear
and trembling. “Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.”
Faith must be sustained by works; the doers of the work are justified
before God. You displease God in talking of your poverty, while
you have abundance. All that you possess belongs to Him, yet He
has seen fit to make you a steward of it for a short time, He is testing
and proving you. How will you bear the test? He will require His
own with usury.
You have fixed your eyes upon what you have given to different
enterprises, and it looks large to you. But had you done very much
more, had your hearts expanded, and your hands dispensed to the
cause of God and to the needy, you would have done no more than
your duty, and you would have been far happier. The Lord calls
upon you to bring your offering to the altar, and not hold it within
reach merely, but lay it on the altar. The altar sanctifies the gift when
it is placed upon it, and not before.
You are not as separate from the world as God requires you to be,
but you do not see and understand your danger. You are led astray
by your love of the world. You both need to take a deeper draught at
the Fountain of truth. Unless you do come into a different condition
where you can honor God with your influence and your substance,
His curse will come upon you. You may gather, but He will scatter.
Instead of your health springing forth speedily, you will become like
a withered branch. The Lord calls for workers—men who can and
will feel for the salvation of souls, and who will sacrifice anything