Testimony Treasures, Volume 1 - Ellen G. White

The Galling Yoke of Selfishness
Their hearts are so overgrown with thorns and with the cares of this life
that heavenly things can find no place in them. Jesus invites the weary and
heavy-laden with promises of rest if they will come to Him. He invites them
to exchange the galling yoke of selfishness and covetousness, which makes
them slaves to mammon, for His yoke, which He declares is easy, and His
burden, which is light. He says: "Learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in
heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls." Matthew 11:29. He would have
them lay aside the heavy burdens of worldly care and perplexity, and take
His yoke, which is self-denial and sacrifice for others. This burden will prove
to be light. Those who refuse to accept the relief which Christ offers them,
and continue to wear the galling yoke of selfishness, tasking their souls to the
utmost in plans to accumulate money for selfish gratification, have not
experienced the peace and rest found in bearing the yoke of Christ and lifting
the burdens of self-denial and disinterested benevolence which Christ has
borne in their behalf.
When the love of the world takes possession of the heart and becomes a
ruling passion, there is no room left for adoration to God; for the higher
powers of the mind submit to the slavery of mammon, and cannot retain
thoughts of God and of heaven. The mind loses its remembrance of God and
is narrowed and dwarfed to the accumulation of money.
Because of selfishness and love of the world, these men have been
passing on with less and less sense of the magnitude of the work for these
last days. They have not educated their minds to make a business of serving
God. They have not an experience in that direction. Their property has
absorbed their affections and eclipsed the magnitude of the plan of salvation.
While they are improving and enlarging their worldly plans, they see no
necessity for the enlargement and extension of the work of God. They invest
their means in temporal but not in eternal things. Their hearts are ambitious
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