It has been well said: "A Christian worker is good; a worker for Christ is better; but Christ, in a worker, working out His will through him, is best of all."
May it be yours and mine to experience much of the latter, and thus glorify the One whose precious blood has redeemed us, so that it can now be said of each believer, "Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's" (1 Cor. 6:19, 2019What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's. (1 Corinthians 6:19‑20)). Every true Christian will agree that to know Christ is to love Him, and to love Him is to serve Him, and to serve Him is the greatest honor and delight imaginable!
Brainerd said, "I care not how or where I live, or what hardships I go through, so that I can but gain souls to Christ."
Fletcher of Madeley said to Samuel Bradburn, "If you should live to preach the gospel forty years, and be the instrument in the salvation of only one soul, it would be worth all your labors."
It is comparatively easy to shine on great occasions and to meet special emergencies. It is not so easy to shine in ordinary duties and to meet the momentary requirements of daily living. We need, it is true, our great experiences to "mount up with wings as eagles." Nor must we be without power for the times of exceptional pressure, to "run, and not be weary." But far above all we need grace for the little things of life, to "walk, and not faint."
In looking out for opportunities of doing great things in the Lord's cause, we lose daily, hourly opportunities for little acts of self-denial which especially require the grace of Christ. To be crucifying self when no eye but that of God sees us, this is the most acceptable service to our Lord and Master.
True service begins with Christ who is the Head; and when Christ is forgotten, then the service is defective. It has lost connection with the spring and fountain of service, because it is from the Head that all the body by joints and bands, having nourishment ministered, increaseth. Now the constant effort of Satan is to disconnect in our minds Christ from our service—and this much more than any of us, perhaps, have fully discovered. Whether in reading, praying, or speaking, how seldom do we find that we act as toward Christ alone! How often sentimentality and natural feeling affect us in our service, instead of simple love to Him!
A dewdrop does the will of God as well as the rainstorm; so the humblest service of the most obscure of God's saints, if done in the name of Christ, will receive His "well done," as the act of a faithful servant, while the ostentatious display of many will be ignored at the judgment seat of Christ. Be content to "fill a little place if God be glorified."
The secret of true ministry is an overflowing heart. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. If Christ be filling the heart, Christ will be expressed by the believer. There is no effort in overflowing. A vessel overflows when it has been filled to the full and because the supply is still flowing in. Whatever the gift and eloquence may be, we come round to the truth that a man is but a vessel, but what the vessel contains, that satisfies. Let the believer say, "By the grace of God I will live and do in the power of my risen Lord."
No gift or special endowment of the Spirit is needed to serve our Lord Christ. The spring of all real service is love. Without it the most abundant and diversified services are robbed of the savor which would make them acceptable to God. The meanest service undertaken and accomplished in the spirit of love has a fragrance altogether its own. The service of love and the service of legality are diametrically opposed.