Opposition to Faithful Warnings
217
The greatest triumph given us by the religion of Christ is control over
ourselves. Our natural propensities must be controlled, or we can never
overcome as Christ overcame.
There are some among the professed followers of Christ who are
spiritual dyspeptics. They are self-made invalids, and their spiritual
debility is the direct result of their own shortcomings. They do not obey
the laws of God nor carry out the principles of His commandments.
They are indolent in His cause and work, accomplishing nothing
themselves; but when they think they see something with which they
can find fault, then they are active and zealous. A Christian who does
not work cannot be healthy. Spiritual disease is the result of neglected
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duty. In order for a man’s faith to be strong, he must be much with
God in secret prayer. How can a man’s benevolence be a blessing
to him if he never exercises it? How can we ask God to help in the
conversion of souls unless we are doing all in our power to bring them
to the knowledge of the truth? You have brought upon yourself a
debility which has made you useless to yourself and to the church, and
the remedy is repentance, confession, and reform. You need moral
power and the real nourishment of the grace of God. Nothing will give
bone and sinew to your piety like working to advance the cause you
profess to love, instead of binding it. There is but one genuine cure for
spiritual laziness, and that is work—working for souls who need your
help. Instead of strengthening souls, you have been discouraging and
weakening the hearts and hands of those who would see the cause of
God advance.
God has given you abilities which you can use to good account,
or abuse to your own injury and to the injury of others. You have
not realized the claims that God has upon you. It should be ever
borne in mind that we are living in this world to form characters for
the next. And all our associations with our fellow mortals should
be with reference to their eternal interest and to our own; but if our
interviews with them are devoted only to pleasure and to our own
selfish gratification, if we are light and trifling, if we indulge in wrong
acts, we are not co-workers with God, but are decidedly working
against Him. The precious lives God has given us are not to be molded
by unbelieving relatives in a way to please the carnal mind, but to be
spent in a manner which God can approve.