Self-Improvement
Ministers of age and experience should feel it their duty, as God’s
hired servants, to go forward, progressing every day, continually be-
coming more efficient in their work, and constantly gathering fresh
matter to set before the people. Each effort to expound the gospel
should be an improvement upon that which preceded it. Each year
they should develop a deeper piety, a more tender spirit, a greater spir-
ituality, and a more thorough knowledge of Bible truth. The greater
their age and experience, the nearer should they be able to approach
the hearts of the people, having a more perfect knowledge of them.—
Testimonies for the Church 4:270
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God has no use for lazy men in His cause; He wants thoughtful,
kind, affectionate, earnest workers. Active exertion will do our preach-
ers good. Indolence is proof of depravity. Every faculty of the mind,
every bone in the body, every muscle of the limbs, shows that God
designed our faculties to be used, not to remain inactive.... Men who
will unnecessarily take the hours of daylight for sleep, have no sense
of the value of precious, golden moments....
Persons who have not acquired habits of close industry and econ-
omy of time, should have set rules to prompt them to regularity and
dispatch. George Washington was enabled to perform a great amount
of business because he was thorough in preserving order and regularity.
Every paper had its date and its place, and no time was lost in looking
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up what had been mislaid.
Men of God must be diligent in study, earnest in the acquirement
of knowledge, never wasting an hour. Through persevering exertion
they may rise to almost any degree of eminence as Christians, as men
of power and influence. But many will never attain superior rank in
the pulpit or in business, because of their unfixedness of purpose, and
the laxness of the habits contracted in their youth. Careless inattention
is seen in everything they undertake.
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