Men may be able to repeat with fluency the great truths brought out with such thoroughness and perfection in our publications; they may talk fervently and intelligently of the decline of religion in the churches; they may present the gospel standard before the people in a very able manner, while the everyday duties of the Christian life, which require action as well as feeling, are regarded by them as not among the weightier matters. This is your danger. Practical religion asserts its claims alike over the heart, the mind, and the daily life. Our sacred faith does not consist either in feeling or in action merely, but the two must be combined in the Christian life. Practical religion does not exist independent of the operation of the Holy Spirit. You need this agency, my brother, and so do all who enter upon the work of laboring to convince transgressors of their lost condition. This agency of the Spirit of God does not remove from us the necessity of exercising our faculties and talents, but teaches us how to use every power to the glory of God. The human faculties, when under the special direction of the grace of God, are capable of being used to the best purpose on earth, and will be exercised in the future, immortal life. (4T 372.1) MC VC

My brother, I have been shown that you could make a very successful teacher if you would become thoroughly sanctified to the work, but that you would be a very poor laborer if not thus consecrated. You will not, as did the world’s Redeemer, accept the servant’s capacity, the laborious part of the gospel preacher’s duty; and in this particular there are many as deficient as yourself. They accept their wages with scarcely a thought as to whether they have done most to serve themselves or the cause, whether they have given their time and talents entirely to the work of God, or whether they have only spoken in the desk and devoted the balance of their time to their own interests, inclination, or pleasure. (4T 372.2) MC VC