FORCEFUL FOR GOD | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 28, 1903

FORCEFUL FOR GOD.

He whose heart is filled with love for the Master and is seeking to do His work, must ask himself from time to time, Is my work accomplishing anything for God? How often at the close of some effort, it may be after some sermon, some special meeting, some attempt to give individual help, or even at the close of a Sabbath-school review or a class exercise, there comes a feeling of dissatisfaction with the character of the effort you have made. You feel that you have not properly set before your audience, your division, your class, or that unconverted soul, Christ crucified and glorified. You feel that you have not reached the heart; that your lips had been touched with frosted steel rather than “coals from off the altar;” that your hearers had seen you and had not recognized the likeness of Christ; that they had heard your words and not the words of God; that hungry hearts have not been satisfied by what you have attempted to do. The Christian worker will never be satisfied with his efforts; but this dissatisfaction will at times be so keen that he is compelled to ask himself the reason therefor.

There may be a multitude of reasons—there generally is one, a failure rightly to connect with the great Source of power. In that, of course, is involved the matter of continuous consecration; but there the cause lies, tho a thousand things may have brought it about. The two important things are the recognition of the lack and the finding of the remedy.

Christ bade His disciples tarry in Jerusalem until they were endued with power from on high. They tarried; but while they tarried they were busy in prayer. There were others tarrying in Jerusalem, but the praying tarriers were alone endued with the power. They had consecrated themselves to His service already. So consecration and prayer made the combination which brought convicting and converting power from on high. That is the combination which will bring it now. But that consecration is a consecration that means service; and that prayer must come from the lips of those whose hearts are set on service—wherever the Master wills. That gave the power of Pentecost, it will give power now.

If your work is fruitless and unsatisfactory, try this combination: consecration and prayer. That means cutting loose from the attractions and ambitions of the world—not half-way, but wholly. It means the very life and all there is of one. The mind that is busy with worldly planning is not endued with the power of winning souls for Christ. The longer we continue in and of the world, the more tightly will the tendrils of our affections twine around the things of earth. We must cut loose, uproot, and reset.

That accomplished by God's help, consecrate all only to Him and “watch unto prayer.” That will bring into your life that oneness of purpose which will enable you to say with Paul: “I determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” That oneness of purpose made Paul a power in the world for God. It will do the same for you. It is illustrated every day in the success which men of the world make by throwing all their energies into one thing. Marconi never would have telegraphed across the ocean had he divided his time among theaters, novels, horse-racing, stock-speculations, ship-building, manufacturing, mining, farming, and other things that take the attention of so many to-day. He won by making one thing his business, as other successful men of the world are doing. The Christian has one business set before him, the business of advancing God's kingdom in the earth. Our talents are not too many, nor our lives too important to give all into the work of God; and when that is done, God will crown that gift, that consecration, that concentration of purpose, with a power that will achieve mightily for Him. “Forgetting those things which are behind” [the things of this world], and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Phil. 3:13, 14. There was no half-hearted service about that, and no half-hearted servant will ever accomplish the work which Paul did. The secret of the whole matter is consecration and prayer. That will make the Christian powerful for God, because only to such can God entrust His power. Would you be forceful for God? Consecrate your life unreservedly to His service and be earnest and constant in prayer.