We should carefully weigh the matters relative to the work we take up. Will this work be a blessing to souls? God has not given us work merely to keep us busy, but for His name’s glory. Many are busily engaged gathering wood, hay, stubble. But this will all be consumed, leaving nothing to prepare souls for that great day when every work is to be tried by fire. Many will find that the work that has occupied their time and attention has perished with the using, and that they themselves have barely been saved, as by fire.
 Such a result as this is not after God’s order. By God’s appointment each man has his post of duty. The careful, prayerful inquiry is to be made, What duty is assigned us individually, as men and women under accountability to God? And whether our labor be wholly limited to spiritual things, or whether it is temporal and spiritual combined, we are to faithfully discharge our work. Things secular and things sacred must be combined, but spiritual things are not to be hidden by secular matters.
 Christ requires the service of the whole being, the physical, mental, and moral powers combined. These are to be enlisted in God’s service. Man is to remember that God has the ownership of all, and that his pursuits are invested with a sacredness that they did not possess before he enlisted in the army of the Lord. Every action is to be a consecrated action, for it occupies God’s entrusted talent of time. Holiness unto the Lord is inscribed on all the actions of such a one, because his whole being is brought under subjection to God.
 No business is to be undertaken, even in ordinary life, if it is corrupting in its influence upon the senses. We are in the Lord’s training school, and He has His own appointed means whereby we may be brought into His service, so that His name may be glorified by the work we do in this world. Many are troubled because they are not working directly for the advancement of God’s kingdom. But the humblest work must not be ignored. If it is honest work, it is a blessing, and may lead to the higher parts of the work. Those who do this work need not accuse themselves of uselessness in the great household of God. This is not necessary, for theirs is a work that someone must do (Manuscript 49, 1898).