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Christian Service
God. Careful consideration and well-matured plans are as essential to
the success of sacred enterprises today as in the time of Nehemiah.—
The Southern Watchman, March 15, 1904
.
How to Counteract Discouragement
The servants of the Lord must expect every kind of discourage-
ment. They will be tried, not only by the anger, contempt, and cruelty
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of enemies, but by the indolence, inconsistency, lukewarmness, and
treachery of friends and helpers ... Even some who seem to desire the
work of God to prosper, will yet weaken the hands of His servants by
hearing, reporting, and half believing the slanders, boasts, and men-
aces of their adversaries.... Amid great discouragements, Nehemiah
made God his trust; and here is our defense. A remembrance of what
the Lord has done for us will prove a support in every danger. “He that
spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He
not with Him also freely give us all things?” And “if God be for us,
who can be against us?” However craftily the plots of Satan and his
agents may be laid, God can detect them, and bring to naught all their
counsels.—
The Southern Watchman, April 19, 1904
.
Those who, standing in the forefront of the conflict, are impelled
by the Holy Spirit to do a special work will frequently feel a reaction
when the pressure is removed. Despondency may shake the most
heroic faith, and weaken the most steadfast will. But God understands,
and He still pities and loves. He reads the motives and the purposes of
the heart. To wait patiently, to trust when everything looks dark, is the
lesson that the leaders in God’s work need to learn. Heaven will not
fail them in their day of adversity. Nothing is apparently more helpless,
yet really more invincible, than the soul that feels its nothingness, and
relies wholly on God.—
Prophets and Kings, 174, 175
.
The Lord calls for soldiers who will not fail nor be discouraged;
but who will accept the work with all its disagreeable features. He
would have us all take Christ for our pattern.—
The Review and Herald,
July 17, 1894
.
Those who today teach unpopular truths need not be discouraged if
at times they meet with no more favorable reception, even from those
who claim to be Christians, than did Paul and his fellow workers from
the people among whom they labored. The messengers of the cross