The Cost of Salvation
The Cost of Salvation, June 6
My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou
art rebuked of him: for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every
son whom he receiveth. Hebrews 12:5, 6.
Christ is our example. He was exposed to hardship. He endured suffering,
He humbled Himself to humanity. Christ bore His burdens without impatience,
without unbelief, without repining. He felt His trials none the less because He
was the divine Son of God. You have not a trouble, perplexity, or difficulty
which did not press with equal weight upon the Son of God; not a sorrow to
which His heart was not equally exposed. His feelings were hurt as easily as
yours. Again the life and character of Christ were faultless. His character was
composed of moral excellencies, including everything pure, and true, and
lovely, and of good report. (Philippians 4:8)
God has given us a perfect, faultless pattern. God designed to make of
you an able, efficient workman. The mind He designed should be purified,
elevated, ennobled. If the mind is allowed to be exercised with small things,
it will be feeble as the result of unchanging laws. God wants His servants to
enlarge the scope of their thoughts and plans of labor and bring their powers
into vigorous contact with things that are grand, elevating, ennobling. This
will give new springs to the intellectual faculties. His thoughts will take
broad scope and he will gird up his energies for the task of a broader, deeper,
grander work, swimming in deep and broad waters where there is no bottom or
shore....
God sees men’s hearts and characters when they do not see their own
state correctly. He sees that His work and cause will suffer if wrongs are not
corrected that exist in themselves unobserved and therefore uncorrected. Christ
calls us His servants, if we do what He commands us. There is to every man
assigned his particular sphere, place, and work, and God asks no more and no
less from the lowliest, as well as the greatest, than that they fulfill their
calling. We are not our own property. We have become servants of Christ by
grace. We are the purchase of the blood of the Son of God. E. G. White—Letter
16, June 6, 1875, to Elder G. I. Butler, former president of the General
Conference.