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Testimonies for the Church Volume 3
S is in danger of indulging a spirit of sharp criticism. This does not
become ministers of righteousness.
Brother S, you have much to learn. You have been inclined to
charge your failures and your discouragements to Brother W, but close
investigation of your motives and of your course of action would
reveal other causes which exist in yourself for these discouragements.
Following the inclinations of your own natural heart brings you into
bondage. The severe, torturing spirit in which you sometimes indulge
cuts off your influence. My brother, you have a work to do for yourself
which no other person can do for you. Each must give an account of
himself to God. He has given us His law as a mirror into which we
may look and discover the defects in our characters. We are not to
look into this mirror for the purpose of seeing our neighbor’s faults
reflected, of watching to see if he comes up to the standard, but to see
the defects in ourselves, that we may remove them. Knowledge is not
all that we need; we must follow the light. We are not left to choose
for ourselves and to obey that which is agreeable to us and to disobey
when it best suits our convenience. Obedience is better than sacrifice.
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