As believers in Christ we need greater faith. We need to be more fervent in prayer. Many wonder why their prayers are so lifeless, their faith so feeble and wavering, their Christian experience so dark and uncertain. Have we not fasted, they say, and “walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts?” Malachi 3:14. In the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah Christ has shown how this condition of things may be changed. He says: “Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?” Isaiah 58:6, 7. This is the recipe that Christ has prescribed for the fainthearted, doubting, trembling soul. Let the sorrowful ones, who walk mournfully before the Lord, arise and help someone who needs help. (6T 266.1) MC VC

Every church is in need of the controlling power of the Holy Spirit, and now is the time to pray for it. But in all God’s work for man He plans that man shall co-operate with Him. To this end the Lord calls upon the church to have a higher piety, a more just sense of duty, a clearer realization of their obligations to their Creator. He calls upon them to be a pure, sanctified, working people. And the Christian help work is one means of bringing this about, for the Holy Spirit communicates with all who are doing God’s service. (6T 266.2) MC VC

Read the account of how the prophet Elisha fed one hundred men: “There came a man from Baalshalisha, and brought the man of God bread of the first fruits, twenty loaves of barley, and full ears of corn in the husk thereof. And he said, Give unto the people, that they may eat. And his servitor said, What, should I set this before an hundred men? He said again, Give the people, that they may eat: for thus saith the Lord, They shall eat, and shall leave thereof. So he set it before them, and they did eat, and left thereof, according to the word of the Lord.” 2 Kings 4:42-44. (6T 466.1) MC VC

What condescension it was on the part of Christ to work this miracle to satisfy hunger! He relieved the hunger of one hundred sons of the prophets, and again and again since then, though not always in so marked and visible a way, He has worked to supply human need. If we had clearer spiritual discernment, so that we could recognize more readily God’s merciful, compassionate dealing with His people, we would gain a rich experience. We need to study more than we do into the wonderful working of God. Men who are not united with us in acknowledging the truth, He has moved to favor His people. The Lord has His men of opportunity, like the man who brought the food for the sons of the prophets. (6T 466.2) MC VC

When the Lord gives us a work to do, let us not stop to inquire into the reasonableness of the command or the probable result of our efforts to obey it. The supply in our hands may seem to fall far short of our needs; but in the hands of the Lord it will be more than sufficient. The servitor “set it before them, and they did eat, and left thereof, according to the word of the Lord.” 2 Kings 4:44. (6T 466.3) MC VC

We need greater faith. We should have a fuller sense of God’s relationship to those whom He has purchased with the blood of His only-begotten Son. We should exercise faith in the onward progress of the work of the kingdom of God. (6T 466.4) MC VC