Consecration to Service.
By A. G. Daniells
ONE of the highest and most important purposes of the church of Christ is service. “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” “I will bless thee, . . . and thou shalt be a blessing.” Gen. 12:2. “As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” 1 Peter 4:10. Saved to serve is the divine arrangement. It is thus that the church is the “light of the world,” the “salt of the earth.” It is the Holy Spirit that enables Christ’s followers to render effectual service. He first gives them victory over their sins. He then uses them as witnesses for Christ to those who have not experienced what they have. No phase of the Spirit’s ministry in the church is made so prominent in the word as this. In His parting instruction to the church, Jesus said, “Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you; and ye shall be My witnesses.” Luke 24: 47-49; Acts 1:8. Nothing could be plainer than that a most essential requisite to a Spirit-filled church is the consecration by the church of its time, talents, and means to the service of God for the redemption of a lost world. It is idle for the church to pray to be filled with the Spirit if she declines, or even neglects, to make this consecration. The Spirit is6Christ’s invisible ambassador to this world to finish His work. The church is the Spirit’s visible medium thru which He is to bear witness for Christ to all men, to win them to Him. The church that does not understand this and consent to the plan can not be a Spirit-filled church. As the church of Christ includes all the individual believers in Christ, all that pertains to the church as a whole affects each member personally. To have a Spirit-filled church there must be Spirit-filled pastors, church officers, and individual members. The conditions with which the church must comply in order to be filled with the Spirit are precisely the conditions with which each individual believer must comply in order to be filled. This whole question, then, is intensely personal. It is of no special value as a theory. Nothing less than personal experience will answer.