REAL SERVICE, NOT HUMAN AMIABILITY
REAL SERVICE, NOT HUMAN AMIABILITY
If I can, I shall place before you the path of blessing with which, as I believe, the Lord has favoured you. The Lord must be your only true Object and Centre. You must not only refer everything to Him, but you must act from Him. This double movement you require for every service.
“If any man serve me, let him follow me” (John 12: 26). This being admitted, you can test everything by the simple question, Is it to as well as from Him, and from as well as to Him? One of these, by itself, would not be perfect. Christ is always the Centre and Object of the Spirit, and as I am led by the Spirit, each act has this double movement. With Him for my Centre, my circumference is ever in relation to Him. Wherever I am, and do what I may, He is before me - the One I am thinking of. If I visit, I come from Him, and I think of Him there. I like my visitor one time, because I am able to bring my Object before him; at another time, because he brings my Object before me; and if I really come from Him, He is still my Object, even if I find neither with my visitor. The more He is thus to me, the more communion have I with His own whenever I meet them. It is never what I am in a natural way which really binds the spiritual to me.
True, the gracious, self-denying ways which mark you do most favourably impress; but, after all, there is no real binding power in them beyond the measure of Christ that is in them; and you will find that, even where there is a dry, hard bearing, if there is real devotedness to the Lord, there is more assured attraction [p. 309] and bond than where there is much outwardly winning and serviceable, without the devotedness. I am not reprobating the grace of unselfishness, but I am endeavouring to show that it is but a husk unless the Lord be both the Centre and the Object; and that the one who makes Him the Centre and the Object, and yet who could not clothe their service in the beautiful garments I refer to, would, after all, make a more lasting, because a divine, impression than the one who had relied too much, or mainly, on the attractive way in which the service was done. The divine thing comes to the surface in the long run. One is greatly captivated by amiability, but one never builds on it. Amiability is beautiful, but it is not sensitive; that is, it is not select in its objects, and it is not in its nature capable of making a difference. It is not love “without dissimulation” which governs it - that is, love without putting on a greater appearance than the love would warrant. Amiability may be unselfish kindness, but it is never real service. The dress is beautiful, but it is a blossom which bears no fruit. The substance is the thing to cultivate, and then, though it come out in a very homely attire, it is sure to be appreciated for its genuine worth; and this, after all, is, in the long run, what the crucible of this life determines.
I do not see that there is any lack of favour to you, and the more single-eyed and devoted you are to the Lord, the more you will endear yourself effectively to each one loving Him.
The Lord lead you to be thankful, and appreciative of His favours to you, and give you to make Him so your Object and Centre, that you will not be thinking how you stand with any one, but how He stands; and that your one desire and labour may be that He may stand higher and higher, each day, with all your friends.