SENT INTO THE WORLD FOR CHRIST

SENT INTO THE WORLD FOR CHRIST

May the Lord give you in your prison to learn much of His mind for His servants in this day. I feel that saints generally, do not believe that what they are saved for by Christ who gave Himself for our sins is that He might deliver us from this evil age; and, secondly, that they are sent by Him into the world (the system of things here). They in general are not so assured of the first, which is present salvation, that they can embrace and be true to the second.

No Christian is sent into this world to be merely a business man, or a domestic man. Many a one makes a better servant through the pressure of business and duties, as a horse is more dependable with a good harness than without it. But surely harness is not the end, but the means to the end.

It is amazing the effect it has on one when he realises that he has received a mission from the Lord. It is not a question of how useful he is or how he commends himself to others, but his one desire is to be commended of the Lord, for the Lord is paramount with him. How great and blessed would be the testimony if each one of us were fulfilling his mission, or the ministry which he had received of the Lord! The Lord said, “The scriptures ... testify of me” (John 5: 39), and He also said of the Spirit of truth, “He shall testify of me” (John 15: 26). Now many Christians have learned the testimony of the scriptures, who know little ^[p. 42] of the testimony of the Holy Ghost to Christ in heaven. To this latter I need not say we are called.

The Lord comfort you much, and enable you to be more for Himself, not so much in word as in power. I am learning that no servant can lead another beyond the measure of his own grace — the measure in which he has learned grace. The Spirit honours the word spoken where it has been effectual in the speaker. All such service draws one very near to the Lord, and this is, I might say, the best part of it.