Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. Matthew 11:29.

Those who would at last be received into heaven as members of the royal family must here give themselves, body, soul, and spirit, to the service of Him who paid the price of their redemption. All that we have and are belongs to the Lord. “Ye are not your own,” the apostle declares. “For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Corinthians 6:19, 20)….

Have you consecrated yourself wholly to the Lord? Can He use you as a vessel unto honor? Are you faithfully acting your part in His cause? To every man God has given his work. He expects every believer to cooperate with Him in the work of soul-saving. When His cause is suffering for means, how can anyone set a price on his services, refusing to take up the cross daily, and practice self-denial for Christ’s sake?

The fulfillment of the promise that we shall be joint-heirs with Christ rests upon our willingness to deny self. When Christ takes possession of His kingdom, it will be those who on this earth have followed Him in self-denial and sacrifice who will receive the reward of everlasting life.

Christ’s call to sacrifice and unreserved surrender means crucifixion of self. In order to obey this call, we must have unquestioning faith in Him as the perfect Example, and we must have a clear realization that we are to represent Him to the world. Those who work for Christ are to work in His lines. They are to live His life. His call to unreserved surrender is to be to them supreme. They are to allow no earthly tie or interest to prevent them from giving Him the homage of their hearts and the service of their lives. Earnestly and untiringly they are to labor with God to save perishing souls from the power of the tempter.

Those who are thus connected with Christ learn constantly of Him, passing through the successive stages of progress in Christian experience. Difficulty and perplexity come to them, that they may learn more perfectly the will and way of Christ. But they pray and believe, and by exercise their faith increases.

“Take my yoke upon you,” Christ said, as in human nature He lived and worked upon this earth. Constantly He wore the yoke of submission, meeting the difficulties that human beings must meet, bearing the trials that they must bear. The enemy will continually assault us as he assaulted Christ, bringing against us strong temptation. But for everyone there is a way of escape.—Manuscript 88, August 9, 1903, “Be Not Weary in Well-doing.”

From The Upward Look – Page 235

Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you. Jeremiah 7:23.

The Lord desires everyone to work for his own spiritual and eternal good. This can only be done as we obey the lessons Christ has given. If we gain the eternal reward, we must follow the example of Christ, our Pattern, who did good and only good with the Lord’s entrusted talents. He cheerfully gave up His life to ransom a wicked, apostate race. But today selfishness, worldliness, pride, and self-indulgence are constantly consuming the means entrusted to those who claim to be Christians. They are misappropriating the money that the Lord requires them to use to bring many sons and daughters to Him.

When Christians work as the Head of the church worked, they will not be constantly contriving how they can use the Lord’s money for their own pleasure. Is it not honor enough for them to be cooperating with the world’s Redeemer? Worldly schemes, worldly investments, made to please and glorify self, bring no returns worth the having. God condemns them, and what God condemns is not safe for any living soul to practice.

“Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2). Here is an experience to be gained that will not prove disappointing. The mighty God, who through Jesus Christ created man, calls upon every soul to prove Him, and see what this will bring to all who do this. They are tested and tried, and in conformity to the will of God, they realize what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of their Creator.

Worldly conformity is hindered and made impossible through obedience to the plain, simple “Thus saith the Lord.” Gospel sanctification and transformation of soul, body, and spirit sends the feet of all such through the strait gate into the narrow way, the path cast up for the ransomed of the Lord to walk in. In cooperation with God, they work as Christ worked for the souls and bodies of their fellow men….

The Lord calls upon you … to look at these things with eyes enlightened not by worldly advisers, but by His Spirit. Take the Word as it reads…. Place yourself where the riches of the glory of heaven shall shine before you and behind you and on every side of you, because you are all light in the Lord.—Letter 110, August 8, 1899, to a woman of means.

From The Upward Look – Page 234

But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. Proverbs 4:18.

Christ’s love in the heart, revealing through the life its wondrous power—this is the greatest miracle that can be performed before a fallen, quarreling world. Let us try to work this miracle, not in our own power, but in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose we are and whom we serve. Let us put on Christ, and the miracle-working power of His grace will be so plainly revealed in the transformation of character that the world will be convinced that God has sent His Son into the world to make men as angels in character and life.

Those who truly believe in Christ sit together with Him in heavenly places. Let us accept the badge of Christianity. This is not an outward sign, not the wearing of a cross or a crown, but it is something that reveals the union of man with God. Let us “put off the old man with his deeds; and … put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him” (Colossians 3:9, 10). The beauty of holiness is revealed as Christians draw near together, blending in Christlike love.

“Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having an high priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching” (Hebrews 10:19-25).

There is only one true religion, only one way to heaven; only one light to illuminate the way as the pilgrims press on. As we follow on to know the Lord, we shall acknowledge at every step that Christ is the Light of the world, that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life; and we shall find that the path that He bids us follow is “as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day” (Proverbs 4:18)….

The Lord is good and greatly to be praised…. How blest, how doubly blest, is the home in which father, mother, and children are consecrated to the service of Christ.—Letter 126, August 7, 1902, to an evangelist in New York City.

From The Upward Look – Page 233

Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country. Matthew 21:33.

This parable is of great importance to all who are entrusted with responsibilities in the Lord’s service. God selected a people to be educated by Christ. He brought them into the wilderness to be trained for His service, and there gave them the highest code of morality—His holy law. To them was committed God’s lesson book, the Old Testament Scriptures. Enshrouded in the pillar of cloud Christ led them in their wilderness wandering. By His own power He transplanted the wild vine from Egypt to His vineyard. Well might God ask, “What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done?” (Isaiah 5:4).

It is impossible to enumerate the advantages the Lord prepared for the world in making the Jewish nation the repository of His rich treasures of knowledge. They were the subjects of His special favor. As a people who knew and worshiped the true God, they were to communicate the principles of His kingdom. They were instructed by the Lord. He withheld from them nothing favorable to the formation of characters which would make them fit representatives of His kingdom. Their feasts, the Passover, the Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles, and the ceremonies attending these gatherings, were to proclaim the truths that God had entrusted to His people. At these gatherings the people were to show gladness and joy, expressing their thanksgiving for their privileges and the gracious treatment of their Lord. Thus they were to show to a world that knew not God that the Lord does not forsake those who trust in Him. With joyful voices they were to sing, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God” (Psalm 43:5)….

The history of the children of Israel is written for our admonition and instruction upon whom the ends of the world are come. Those who would stand firm in the faith in these last days, and finally gain an entrance into the heavenly Canaan, must listen to the words of warning spoken by Jesus Christ to the Israelites. These lessons were given to the church in the wilderness to be studied and heeded by God’s people throughout their generations forever. The experience of the people of God in the wilderness will be the experience of His people in this age. Truth is a safeguard in all time to those who will hold fast the faith once delivered to the saints.—Manuscript 110, August 6, 1899, “The Unfaithful Husbandmen.”

From The Upward Look – Page 232

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? 2 Corinthians 6:14.

Dear Sister _____: I will not delay writing you that which the Lord brings to my mind. Your case was presented to me two years ago. I then saw you were a deceived woman. You thought you had clear light from God, but it was darkness. You have had views and an experience peculiar to yourself and not in harmony with the people whom God is leading….

There is no such thing as an instantaneous sanctification. It is an every-day work. Says Paul, “I die daily” (1 Corinthians 15:31). He received a conversion daily to God. As the truth and Spirit of God revealed to him the defects in his character, he put away his wrong, died to self, and cleansed himself “from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1)….

Your peculiar ideas have had so powerful a control upon your mind [that] you could not dwell upon anything else. In meeting, you thought it your special duty to urge your opinions. You have taken your position above the church as though you were exalted and in the light and [as though] they must come up to your position, receive your views. You are fanatical; you have not a healthy imagination. Your influence will do harm and only harm, unless you become humble and teachable….

Satan is most successful when he can cover up minds in this kind of pious, sanctified consecration which has no part in the sanctification brought to view in the Word of God. It is, in short, a spurious article, that article [that] you possess. You received your views of sanctification from those who claim to be sanctified and holy, who have no love for the law of God and who have no love for His appearing. You received your light from a corrupt source; the stream that came from a corrupt fountain is impure.

As I write to you, your case is more plain and clear before me. You have allowed your views of sanctification to unite you to those who were grossly corrupt. You have not obeyed the Word of God and abstained from all appearance of evil. Satan has desired your soul that he might sift you as wheat. Your “holy, sanctified union” (as you have termed it) with individuals has been a delusion of Satan….

You have been led through your perverse ideas of sanctification to depart from the Word of God. You have a work to do to break all in pieces and give up your experience in the past few years and become as a little child and be converted, be humble and teachable that God may lead you.—Letter 10, August 5, 1870, to a church member in New York State.

From The Upward Look – Page 231