Choosing Earthly Treasure
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You can be a blessing to the church at-----. You can be a pillar there
even now if you will come to the light and walk in it. God calls after
you again. He seeks to reach you, girded about with selfishness as you
are, and covered with the cares of this life. He invites you to withdraw
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your affections from the world and place them upon heavenly things.
In order to know the will of God, you must study it, rather than follow
your inclinations and the natural bent of your own mind. What wilt
Thou have me to do?” should be the earnest, anxious inquiry of your
heart.
The weight of the wrath of God will fall upon those who have
misspent their time and served mammon instead of their Creator. If
you live for God and heaven, pointing out the way of life to others,
you will go onward and upward to higher and holier joys. You will be
rewarded with the “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: ... enter
thou into the joy of thy Lord.” The joy of Christ was that of seeing
souls redeemed and saved in His glorious kingdom. “Who for the joy
that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is
set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
To gain the treasures of this world, and use them as you have
done to separate your affections from God, will be to you in the end a
terrible curse. You do not take time to read, to meditate, or to pray;
and you have not taken time to instruct your children, keeping before
them their highest interest. God loves your children; but they have had
little encouragement to live a religious life. If you destroy their faith
in the Testimonies you cannot reach them. The minds of poor, fallible
mortals should be disciplined and educated in spiritual things. When
the training is all in reference to the world, and to making a success
of acquiring property, how can spiritual growth be attained? It is an
impossibility. You, my brother, and your family might have risen to
the full stature of men and women in Christ Jesus had you felt one half
the interest to perfect Christian character and to serve the Lord that
you have had to serve the world.
God is not well pleased that His servants should be ignorant of
His divine will, novices in spiritual understanding, but wise in worldly
wisdom and knowledge. Your earthly interest can bear no comparison
with your eternal welfare. God has a higher work for you to do than
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that of acquiring property. You need a deep and thorough work ac-
complished for you. Your entire family need it, and may God help you