BEGIN AT CHRIST'S CIRCLE
BEGIN AT CHRIST’S CIRCLE
The first circle which should engage a saint now is the circle of Christ’s own. “To love one another as I have loved you”; that is my true and really only circle. I may have tangents striking off from that circle, but the moment I have another circle it is not Christ’s. “Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you” (John 15: 14). The friend of Christ can have no other circle but His. As an evangelist I necessarily form a tangent to this circle, but my simple purpose is to lead souls into this circle. The circle is the [p. 165] Fort; I, as an evangelist, go on a foraging expedition to acquire material for the Fort; the Fort is my circle. I emerge from it; I return to it; I seek the lost; I pity the suffering; I heal the wounded and care for the sick; but it is all evangelical, not ecclesiastical. The evangelist is not true to his calling if he does not work with reference to the circle — the Fort from which he is an agent. I believe ———— and others might go to ———— as real missionaries from the Fort, but then their hearts and hands would be devoted to the saints or to the search for them in the first instance — not that they would refuse relief to any sufferer, but their mission would be marked and characteristic of their being Christ’s friends. I fear beginning at a human circle. People imagine they can step from it to Christ’s circle — a feat which is never accomplished. You can pass from the highest circle to the lowest, but it is impossible in any moral or natural action to ascend from the lowest to the highest. The highest is the one nearest to the source of action, and the lowest is the farthest from it. Hence the philanthropist who begins at the human circle, never reaches the circle of Christ; he is not really a friend of Christ, while the true friend of Christ will by tangents reach out to the lost and suffering around, but always bearing the distinct mark of being Christ’s friend.
I see in scripture when there was a famine it was determined to send help to the saints. “Do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith” (Galatians 6: 10). Begin at Christ’s circle, and extend from thence as much as you can. A mere philanthropist was never a “friend” of Christ. “Be not called of men a benefactor”. Exploit is not faith, though faith performs great exploits.