Advice to a Young Physician

The Lord has given you your work. He expects you each week to interview yourself, to find out how you are trading on your Lord's goods. Are you putting to the tax your mental, moral, and physical powers in an effort to please the Lord, who desires you to accumulate talents by a correct use of those He has given you? Your being a physician in no case releases you from the necessity of practicing economy. There are new fields to be entered, and to enter these fields requires the closest economy. Will you enter these fields as you have entered -----, content to let others practice self-denial and lift the cross, while you indulge your fancies, spending money lavishly to make a show? God requires you to accomplish good with every jot of your influence. Then will be seen the most blessed results.MM 130.3

You need to learn the art of using your talents for the glory of Him who has lent them to you. This requires study and prayer and consecration. Some seem to have no idea of the science of handling money. They allow hundreds of dollars to pass through their hands without producing anything for God....MM 130.4

Cultivate Integrity, Self-Denial, and Humility

God calls upon you to straighten yourself out. Be a man. Put away your extravagance. Extravagant ideas must not be indulged under the name of medical missionary work. It is high time that we became Christians in heart. Integrity, self-denial, and humility should characterize our lives....MM 131.1

There is a great work to be done. Are you doing all you can to help? God has given us a commission which angels might envy. Medical missionary work is to be done. Thousands upon thousands of human beings are perishing. The compassion of God is moved. All heaven is looking on with intense interest to see what stamp medical missionary work will assume under the supervision of human beings. Will men make merchandise of God's ordained plan for reaching the dark parts of the earth with a manifestation of His benevolence?MM 131.2

Medical missionary work is a sacred thing of God's own devising. After Adam's transgression a costly price was paid to rescue the fallen race. Those who will cooperate with God in His effort to save, working on the lines on which Christ worked, will be wholly successful. The church is charged to convey to the world, without delay, God's saving mercy. We are not to cover mercy with selfishness and then call it medical missionary work.MM 131.3

The Church an Angel of Light

We have no time to waste. God has provided a means of recovery for sinners. By unselfish work His truth is to be represented. This is the trust He has given us, and it is to be faithfully executed.MM 131.4

When will the church do her appointed work? She is represented as an angel of light, flying through heaven with the everlasting gospel to be proclaimed to the world. This represents the speed and directness with which the church is to prosecute her work. In the medical missionary work Jesus is to behold the travail of His soul. Human beings are to be snatched as brands from the burning.MM 131.5

Heaven is Watching

But a change has come that has hindered the work which God designed to move forward without a trace of selfishness. All heaven is watching with intense anxiety to see what is to be the outcome of the work which is so large and so important. God is watching, the heavenly universe is watching; and souls are perishing. Is the enterprise of mercy through which in the past God has manifested His grace in rescuing and restoring, to become a matter of selfish merchandise? Shall the instrumentality ordained by heaven to bring good to man and glory to God be lost through improvident expenditure? Shall God's agency of blessing be used by those who profess to believe the truth in buying and selling and getting gain?MM 131.6

The experience of apostolic days will come to us if men will be worked by the Holy Spirit. The Lord will withdraw His blessing where selfish interests are indulged; but He will put His people in possession of good all through the world if they will use this for the uplifting of humanity. His work is to be a sign of His benevolence, a sign that will win the confidence of the world and bring in resources for the advancement of His kingdom.MM 132.1

A Contagious Example

God will test the sincerity of men. Those who will deny self, take up the cross, and follow Christ will have a continual work to do in the line of restoring the fallen human order. Those who sacrifice for truth make a great impression on the world. Their example is contagious and convincing. Men see that there is in the church that faith which works by love and purifies the soul. But when those who profess to be working for God seek to benefit themselves, they greatly retard the work and cast a reproach upon it....MM 132.2

Divine Authority to be Acknowledged

Never forsake the true standard, even though to cling to it makes you a beggar. God has set up a high standard of righteousness. He has made a plain distinction between human and divine wisdom. All who work on Christ's side must work to save, not to destroy. Worldly policy is not to become the policy of the servants of God. Divine authority is to be acknowledged. The church on earth is to be the representative of heavenly principles. Amid the awful confederacy of injustice, deception, robbery, and crime she is to shine with light from on high. In the righteousness of Christ she is to stand against the prevailing apostasy.—Letter 38, 1901.MM 132.3