PREPARATION FOR SERVICE
PREPARATION FOR SERVICE
Every servant requires, and as he waits for it receives, preparation for every coming service. He does not know the service for which he is being prepared. Were he to know it, the tendency would be that he would think how to act instead of being simply prepared of God. This is to be noted in the service of every one. There may be the most elaborate preparation for some particular service, and it may be performed in a very orderly, useful way, but it lacks the vitality which would mark it were the servant imbued with the mind of God, and thus made fit for the service appointed him by God, though ignorant of the particular service for which he is being prepared. A true [p. 242] servant is like a garden which grows any kind of fruit desired by its owner. He does not know what will be required of him, but he is prepared for the demand on his services when it comes. I believe the lack in efficient service comes from not being thus prepared in secret with God so as to be able to act according to His mind when the demand comes. The greater the nature of the service the greater the need of preparation, and, as I have said, one of the peculiarities connected with the preparation is that the particular service is not developed until we are ready for it. Orders are indeed given, but they are like the sealed orders given to the captain of a ship — not to be opened or acted on until the moment of demand comes. And the reason of this is that the service itself may not occupy our thoughts and desires, as it naturally would, more than the power needed to carry it out in God’s way and according to His mind. Even in the ministry of the word this is the case. I do not mean that I must be ignorant of the subject on which I should speak, but if I think more of the subject than of the power of Christ, and the unction that can only be acquired in His presence, the word will not be effectual, even if it be the greatest truth and delivered in the most perfect way. Every service, be it great or small, is in power according as the servant is prepared of God. Abram was not told that Melchisedec’s visit and blessing was to prepare him for the interview with and offer of the king of Sodom. Moses was not told that the forty days he was detained in the glory getting the pattern of the tabernacle would prepare him for meeting the idolatry of Israel when he came down from the mount, and acting for God in it. He got his preparation for it with God and Paul got his preparation for being a ‘minister and a witness’.
JND says that he is careful not to present a new idea in scripture unless he has seen it in all its bearings with other scriptures, and how every truth would be affected by it.