The Church Is Blessed—Let church members during the week act their part faithfully, and on the Sabbath tell their experiences. The meeting will then be as meat in due season, bringing to all present new life and fresh vigor. When God’s people see the great need of working as Christ worked for the conversion of sinners, the testimonies borne by them in the Sabbath services will be filled with power. With joy they will bear witness to the preciousness of the experience they have gained in working for others.—Gospel Workers, 199. (WM 306.1) MC VC

Our Own Graces Exercised—Had there been nothing in the world to work at cross purposes with us, patience, forbearance, gentleness, meekness, and longsuffering would not have been called into action. The more these graces are exercised, the more will they be increased and strengthened. The more we deal our temporal bread to the hungry, the oftener we clothe the naked, visit the sick, and relieve the fatherless and the widow in their affliction, the more decidedly shall we realize the blessing of God.—Manuscript 64, 1894. (WM 306.2) MC VC

Why Blessings Are Withheld—The blessing of God cannot come upon those who are idlers in His vineyard. Professed Christians who do nothing neutralize the efforts of real workers by their influence and example. They make the grand and important truths they profess to believe, appear inconsistent, and cause them to have no effect. They misrepresent the character of Christ. How can God let the showers of His grace come upon the churches that are largely composed of this kind of members? They are of no manner of use in the work of God. How can the Master say to such, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: ... enter thou into the joy of thy Lord,”(Matthew 25:21, 23) when they have been neither good nor faithful? God cannot speak a falsehood. The power of the grace of God cannot be given in large measure to the churches. It would dishonor His own glorious character to let streams of grace come upon the people who will not wear the yoke of Christ, who will not bear His burdens, who will not deny self, who will not lift the cross of Christ. Because of their slothfulness they are a hindrance to those who would move out in the work if they did not block up the way.—The Review and Herald, July 21, 1896. (WM 306.3) MC VC