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Watch Your Strength!The Watchtower—1954 | July 15
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your health, food and drink, vitamins and minerals.
If you are of a loving and affectionate nature, be careful that your affection does not turn into sweetish and unprincipled sentimentality. Do not limit your friendly affection to a few favorites. Do not be partial. You have many brothers. Widen your heart and numberless good friends will find room in it. True, Jesus loved John particularly, drawn to him because of inner kinship, both of them being loving and fearless. But Jesus did not limit his friendship to John alone, did he? Neither should you limit yours.
Not a few of you are eloquent and of a ready tongue, gifted with a free flow of thoughts and words. Control this gift. Do not let the words flow unchanneled or in unnecessary detail. Do not monopolize conversations. A good conversationalist is also a good listener. Do not talk too much and say too little. Rather than say little with many words, say much with few. “He who spares his words has true wisdom.” So count your words and you will make your words count. Bubble over with truth, yes; but do not babble. Remember, even silence can be eloquent at times. “Even a fool is counted wise, if he keep silent—intelligent, if he close his lips.”—Prov. 17:27, 28, AT.
So while guarding against our weaknesses let us watch over our strengths, remembering: “He who stands in awe of God shall avoid both extremes.”
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Does God Really Care?The Watchtower—1954 | July 15
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Does God Really Care?
Has God abandoned the earth? Does he care what men say or do? Is he concerned in earth’s affairs or its destiny? Many today say he does not really care, that he does not see the evil, that he will not act to halt it. Does the Bible agree with this view? Do the facts fit it? Does God no longer care for man? Or is it man that no longer cares for God?
BY WAY of illustration, think of a man with vast holdings. One of his choice possessions he places in the care of his children, to belong to them and their offspring after them. It is a vast land of superb natural beauty, productive of all its dwellers desire. The father instructs the children in the care of the land and the animal life upon it. No want is lacking, no needed instruction is withheld. Mistakes are forgiven, correction is mercifully offered. He sends his representatives to guide and direct, and letters to instruct and correct. But the children rebel, their offspring are bent toward evil. They mar the beauty of the land, ruin its soil, exploit its resources, slaughter its wildlife and war among themselves. They ignore their father, disregard his instructions, refuse to read or follow his letters, persecute and kill his representatives. Because of this their woes increase, but they harden in their wicked course and even turn to another as their master. For being unappreciative, unfaithful, unloving, their misery multiplies and bitterness sinks its roots deep. And though they refuse to reform and return in obedience to their father’s care, they raise caustic cries that he does not really care for them, that he has abandoned and forsaken them. Are not their charges ridiculous? Do not they have things backward? Rather than their father’s forsaking them, have they not forsaken
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