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Testimonies for the Church Volume 3
you shall best please Him who has called you to be soldiers of the
cross of Christ? Do you both lift the cross and glory in it? Answer
these questions to God. All your acts, however secret you may think
they have been, are open to your heavenly Father. Nothing is hidden,
nothing covered. All your acts and the motives which prompt them
are open to His sight. He has full knowledge of all your words and
thoughts. It is your duty to control your thoughts. You will have
to war against a vain imagination. You may think that there can be
no sin in permitting your thoughts to run as they naturally would
without restraint. But this is not so. You are responsible to God for
the indulgence of vain thoughts; for from vain imaginations arises the
committal of sins, the actual doing of those things upon which the mind
has dwelt. Govern your thoughts, and it will then be much easier to
govern your actions. Your thoughts need to be sanctified. Paul writes
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to the Corinthians: “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing
that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into
captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” When you come
into this position, the work of consecration will be better understood by
you both. Your thoughts will be pure, chaste, and elevated; your actions
pure and sinless. Your bodies will be preserved in sanctification and
honor, that you may present them “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable
unto God, which is your reasonable service.” You are required to deny
self in little as well as in greater things. You should make an entire
surrender to God; you are not approved of Him in your present state.
You have had an unsanctified influence over the youth in-----. Your
love of show leads to an expenditure of means which is wrong. You
do not realize the claims that the Lord has upon you. You have not
become acquainted with the sweet results of self-denial. Its fruits are
sacred. To serve yourselves and to please yourselves has been the
order of your lives. To spend your means to gratify pride has been
your practice. Oh, how much better it would have been for you to
have restrained your desires and made some sacrifice for the truth of
God, and by thus denying the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and
the pride of life have had something to put into the treasury of God!
Instead of purchasing frivolous things, put your little into the bank of
heaven, that when the Master comes you may receive both principal
and interest.