Brother and Sister N, the influence of unbelieving friends affects you more than you are aware of. They bring you no strength, but darkness and unbelief. You have an individual work in the vineyard of the Lord. You have thought and cared too much for yourselves. Set your hearts in order, and then be in earnest. Inquire: “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” Acts 9:6. God requires of you an earnest reaching out after Him. He bids you search your own hearts diligently to discover all there that prevents your bringing forth much fruit, and that which will remain. The reason you possess no more of the Spirit of God is that you do not cheerfully bear the cross of Christ. In the last vision I saw that you were deceived in regard to the strength of your love for this world. The cares of this life and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and you become unfruitful. God requires us to bear much fruit. He will not give commands without giving with them power for their performance. He will not do our part of the work, neither does He require that we do His. It is God that worketh in us, but we must work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. “Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.” James 2:17. Faith must be sustained by works; the doers of the work are justified before God. You displease God in talking of your poverty, while you have abundance. All that you possess belongs to Him, yet He has seen fit to make you a steward of it for a short time, He is testing and proving you. How will you bear the test? He will require His own with usury. (2T 166.1) MC VC