Notebook Leaflets from the Elmshaven Library, vol. 1

Christ the Pattern

Christ was sent to the world to look after His Father's interests. He is our pattern in all things. The variety of His teaching is a lesson we need to study. 1NL 117.5

All workers are not alike in their understanding and experience or in their administration of the Word. Some are constantly partaking of Christ's flesh and blood. They eat the leaves of the tree of life. They are constant learners in the school of Christ. They make daily progress in goodness, and gain an experience which fits them to labor for the Master. Their influence is a savor of life unto life. So spiritually minded are they that they readily discern spiritual things. The Bible is their study. Magazines, newspapers, and books which treat of nothing heavenly or divine have no attraction for them. But the Word of God grows constantly more precious to them. God draws near and speaks to them in language which cannot be misunderstood. 1NL 117.6

There are others who have not learned how to fix their minds so intently upon the Scriptures that they draw from them each day a fresh supply of grace. 1NL 117.7

Some men have a special message from heaven. They are to be sent forth to waken the people, not to hover over the churches to their own detriment and the hindrance of the work of God. It does a church no good to have two or three ministers waiting upon it. Were these ministers to go forth to labor for those in darkness, their work would show some results. Let the experienced men take the young men who are preparing for the ministry and go forth into new territory to proclaim the message of warning. 1NL 118.1

Those who believe the truth will be greatly blessed as they impart the blessings God has given them, letting their light shine forth in good works. As they let their light shine by personal piety, by revealing sound principles in all business transactions, they will magnify the principles of God's law. God calls upon His workers to annex new territory for Him. With intense earnestness we are to work for those who are without hope and without God in the world. There are rich fields of toil waiting for the faithful worker. 1NL 118.2

The laborers in God's cause should bow before Him in humble, earnest prayer, and then go forth, Bible in hand, to arouse the benumbed senses of those represented in the Word as dead in trespasses and sins. Those who do this work will be greatly blessed. Those who know the truth are to strengthen one another, saying to the ministers, “Go forth into the harvest field in the name of the Lord, and our prayers shall go with you as sharp sickles.” Thus our churches should bear decided witness for God, and they should also bring Him their gifts and offerings, that those who go forth into the field may have wherewith to labor for souls. 1NL 118.3

Who is working faithfully for the Master in this age of the world, when the corruption of the earth is even as the corruption of Sodom and Gomorrah? Who is helping those around him to win eternal life? Are we cleansed and sanctified, fit to be used by the Lord as vessels unto honor? Will every church member now remember that deformity is not from God? The Divine Being is to be worshiped in the beauty of holiness; for He is excellent in majesty and power.... 1NL 118.4

God desires His people to show by their lives the advantage of Christianity over worldliness. We are to live so that God can use us in His work of converting men and women and leading them to wash their garments of character and make them white in the blood of the Lamb. We are His workmanship, “created in Christ Jesus unto good works.” Through us God desires to reveal His manifold wisdom. Therefore He bids us let our light shine forth in good works.—Manuscript 73a, 1900. 1NL 118.5

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When divine power is combined with human effort, the work will spread like fire in the stubble. God will employ agencies whose origin man will be unable to discern; angels will do a work which men might have had the blessing of accomplishing, had they not neglected to answer the claims of God.—The Review and Herald, December 15, 1885. 1NL 118.6