Preparing for Church Membership
381
Teach Spiritual Lessons From Domestic Tasks—God has given
to parents and teachers the work of educating the children and youth
in these lines, and from every act of their lives they may be taught
spiritual lessons. While training them in habits of physical cleanliness,
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we should teach them that God desires them to be clean in heart as
well as in body. While sweeping a room, they may learn how the Lord
purifies the heart. They would not close the doors and windows and
leave in the room some purifying substance, but would open the doors
and throw wide the windows, and with diligent effort expel all the dust.
So the windows of impulse and feeling must be opened toward heaven,
and the dust of selfishness and earthliness must be expelled. The
grace of God must sweep through the chambers of the mind, and every
element of the nature must be purified and vitalized by the Spirit of
God. Disorder and untidiness in daily duties will lead to forgetfulness
of God and to keeping the form of godliness in a profession of faith,
having lost the reality. We are to watch and pray, else we shall grasp
the shadow and lose the substance.
A living faith like threads of gold should run through the daily
experience in the performance of little duties
Heart Education Versus Book Learning—It is right for the
youth to feel that they must reach the highest development of their
mental powers. We would not restrict the education to which God has
set no limit. But our attainments will avail nothing if not put to use for
the honor of God and the good of humanity. Unless our knowledge is
a steppingstone to the accomplishment of the highest purposes, it is
worthless....
Heart education is of more importance than the education gained
from books. It is well, even essential, to obtain a knowledge of the
world in which we live; but if we leave eternity out of our reckoning,
we shall make a failure from which we can never recover
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Mutual Benefits—Our children are the Lord’s property; they have
been bought with a price. This thought should be the mainspring of
our labors for them. The most successful methods of assuring their
salvation and keeping them out of the way of temptation is to instruct
them constantly in the Word of God. And as parents become learners
11
Testimonies For The Church 6:170, 171
.
12
Testimonies For The Church 8:311
.