Testimony Treasures, Volume 3 - Ellen G. White

true manna. Let all repress the desire for reading matter that is not food for
the mind. You cannot possibly do the work of God with clear perception
while the mind is occupied with this class of reading. Those who are in God's
service should spend neither time nor money for light reading. What is the
chaff to the wheat?
Reading and Religious Experience
There is no time for engaging in trifling amusements, the gratification of
selfish propensities. It is time that you were occupied with serious thoughts.
And you cannot dwell upon the self-denying, self-sacrificing life of the
world's Redeemer and find pleasure in joking and jesting and whiling away
your time in foolishness. You are greatly in need of a practical experience in
the Christian life. You need to train the mind for the work of God. The
religious experience is to a great degree determined by the character of the
books you read in your leisure moments.
If you love the Scriptures, and search them whenever there is
opportunity, that you may come into possession of their rich treasures, then
you may be assured that Jesus is drawing you to Himself.
"Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit,
after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after
Christ. For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye
are complete in Him." Colossians 2:8-10.
We cannot be complete in Christ and yet be ready to grasp those things
that come from the so-called great men of the earth, and place their wisdom
before the wisdom of the greatest Teacher the world has ever known. To
seek knowledge from such sources is represented in the word as seeking to
drink from broken cisterns that can hold no water.
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