BEGIN AT THE INNER CIRCLE

^[p. 68] BEGIN AT THE INNER CIRCLE

If you are occupied with serving man, you have begun at the outer circle, and you will never work from thence to the inner. If I am serving Christ I work from the inner circle. I am near Him, and the one nearest to Him occupies me most and first. That is love; it begins at the inner, and reaches to the outer — to whatever is of Christ on the earth.

Give yourself to the things that belong to Christ, seeking that they should have the very form and shape that His heart would have them. It is within the power of the feeblest and humblest to take such an interest in one another as to give the sense of Christ’s love. Nothing gives such an expression of love as the way the truly devoted one will enter into everything that concerns one. But then to serve one another truly, we must get rid of self. What is allowed with men must get no allowance when we come to act for Christ. Our power in enforcing or repressing anything in another is only in proportion as we have enforced or repressed it in ourselves. I cannot touch a point in another, that I have not repressed in myself; but real love having put off what is unsuited to Christ in oneself is able to say to another, ‘See what grace has done in me: I want it to do the same in you.’ Do not be discouraged because you may not carry out your purpose at once; God will carry it out, but you must keep in the place where you will be preserved, in the circle of Christ’s interests. Moses had to wait forty years to carry out his purpose, which was a right one, though in the first flush the flesh sought to carry it out; but in the end, how fully every purpose of his heart was met!