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    Section 18—Extent of the Work

    Co-workers With Christ

    One who believes in Jesus Christ as a personal Saviour is to be a co-worker with Him, bound up with His heart of infinite love, cooperating with Him in works of self-denial and benevolence. He to whom Christ has revealed His pardoning grace will, in practicing the works of Christ, find himself linked up with Christ. God calls upon those for whom He has made such an infinite sacrifice, to take their position as laborers together with Him in developing the gracious operations of God's divine benevolence.MM 315.1

    Christ has withdrawn Himself from the earth, but His followers are still left in the world. His church, consisting of those who love Him, are to give in word and action, in their unselfish love and benevolence, a representation of Christ's love. They are to be the means, by practicing self-denial and bearing the cross, of implanting the principle of love in the hearts of those who are unacquainted with the Saviour by experimental knowledge.MM 315.2

    The Purpose of Churches

    Upon all who believe, God has placed the burden of raising up churches, for the express purpose of educating men and women to use their entrusted capabilities for the benefit of the world, employing the means He has lent for His glory. He has made human beings His stewards. Gladly and generously they are to use the means in their possession for the advancement of righteousness and truth. They are to employ His entrusted talents in building up His work and enlarging His kingdom.MM 315.3

    Ministers as Medical Missionaries

    Our churches, large and small, are not to be treated in such a way that they will be helplessly dependent upon ministerial aid. The members are to be so established in the faith that they will have an intelligent knowledge of medical missionary work. They are to follow Christ's example, ministering to those around them. Faithfully they are to fulfill the vows made at their baptism, the vow that they will practice the lessons taught in the life of Christ. Through sanctification of the truth as it is in Jesus they are to plant in hearts the living principles of saving faith. They are to work together to keep alive in the church the principles of self-denial and self-sacrifice, which Christ, His divinity clothed with humanity, followed in His medical missionary work. It is imparting the knowledge of Christ's love and tenderness that gives efficiency to missionary operations.MM 315.4

    An Army of Workers

    The Lord Jesus desires the members of His church to be an army of workers, laboring for Him according to their varied capabilities, and carrying out the principles of self-denial and self-sacrifice, preserving that love for God which drew them away from the world and which will draw them together, away from separate confederacies, from distant, detached parties. The work is to be one grand, harmonious whole in Christ Jesus. The faith that works by love and purifies the soul is the holy, uplifting, sanctifying agency which is to soften and subdue jarring human nature. The love of Christ is to constrain the believers, causing them to blend in harmonious action at the cross of Calvary. As they live the principles which separated them from the world, they will be bound to one another by the sacred cords of Christian love.MM 316.1

    Work the Works of Christ

    With grace in their hearts believers are to work the works of Christ, placing themselves, soul, body, and spirit, on His side, as His human hand, to impart His love to those who are out of the fold. Believers are to associate together in Christian fellowship, regarding one another as brothers and sisters in the Lord. They are to love one another as Christ loved them. They are to be lights for God, shining in the church and in the world, receiving grace for grace as they impart to others. Thus they are constantly kept in spiritual nearness to God. They reflect the image of Christ.MM 316.2

    Sanctified love is diffusive, refusing to be bound by the home or the church. It seeks to save perishing souls. Every heart that has felt the love of a sin-forgiving Saviour finds itself allied to every other Christian heart. True believers will unite with one another in working for souls ready to perish. Let not our ministers expend time and energy in laboring for those who know the truth. Let them instead seek for those outside the fold, and each should stimulate the other to earnest action in well-defined, sanctified efforts to save the poor souls who are perishing in their sins.MM 316.3

    A Living Church

    When our churches will fulfill the duty resting upon them, they will be living, working agencies for the Master. The manifestation of Christian love will fill the soul with a deeper, more earnest fervor to work for Him who gave His life to save the world. By being good and doing good Christ's followers expel selfishness from the soul. To them the most costly sacrifice seems too cheap to give. They see a large vineyard to be worked, and they realize that they must be prepared by divine grace to labor patiently, earnestly, in season and out of season, in a sphere which knows no boundaries. They obtain victory after victory, increasing in experience and efficiency, extending on all sides their earnest efforts to win souls for Christ. They use to the best advantage their increasing experience; their hearts are melted by the love of Christ.MM 317.1

    Opportunities

    All can labor for the salvation of those who are out of the ark of safety. When church members stand pledged to the service of God, pledged to do missionary work, when they take hold of the work unselfishly because they love the souls for whom Christ has died and are desirous of uniting with the great Medical Missionary, the Lord will come very near to them to instruct them. Life is full of opportunities for practical missionaries. Every man, woman, and child can sow each day the seeds of kind words and unselfish deeds.MM 317.2

    A Thousand Streams

    We shall see the medical missionary work broadening and deepening at every point of its progress, because of the inflowing of hundreds and thousands of streams, until the whole earth is covered as the waters cover the sea. Our ministers are displeasing God by their feeble efforts to let the truths of His word shine forth to the world. Nothing so strengthens the churches as to see the work progressing in other portions of the vineyard. When the ministers understand the great blessing to be derived from laboring for those who know not the truth, they will leave the churches, after impressing upon them the importance of devising plans and methods whereby they can do within their borders the same kind of work that the ministers of the gospel are doing in the regions beyond.MM 317.3

    Lifework a School

    The world is not a croquet ground, on which we are to amuse ourselves; it is a school where we are to study earnestly and thoroughly the lessons given in the word of God. There they may learn how to receive and how to impart. There they may learn how to seek for souls in the highways and byways of life. How earnestly the games of this world are engaged in! If those who engage in them would strive as earnestly for the crown of life which fadeth not away, what victories they would gain! They would become medical missionaries, and they would see how much they could do to relieve suffering humanity. What a blessing they would be! What we need is practical education. Ministers and people, practice the lessons Christ has given in His word, and you will become Christlike in character.—Manuscript 32, 1901.MM 318.1

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