A few Paragraphs from
By F. B. Hole.
If we spend time and effort in what is not God's plan, we shall not have fruit to show before the judgment seat of Christ. We beg our brethren to consider these things very carefully, for we fear that many are wasting their time trying to do what they are not told to do.
Then again, if Ephesians 4:11-16 be attentively read, we see that the gifts that come from the ascended Christ, together with that which every joint of the body supplies, are to be, "for the perfecting of the saints," and, "for the edifying of the body of Christ," and for, "increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." They are not given in order that this gifted man may gather a few saints round himself, and perfect them in his particular line of teaching; or that another may labour merely to edify and increase a group, that he regards as specially favoured or specially correct. Obviously no servant of God can do more than contact and help a few; not even the Apostle Paul could contact all. Yet the few that are contacted should be served as members of the body of Christ, and not as merely connected with the servant himself in some lesser way.
We urge that we should never forget that our calling is the church's calling, and that we keep before us nothing less than, or other than that. The words of the Lord Jesus were, "I will build My church" (Matt. 16:18). Only what He builds is going to stand to the day of eternity. Men have built what they call churches. They have instituted religious unions, societies, guilds, missions, in almost endless variety and with greatly differing characters. Sad to say, the very best of them are often vitiated as the years pass, inasmuch as corruption has permeated the professing church. None of them possess permanence. When the Lord calls His saints to meet Him in the air, no trace of them will be found in His presence, though the wreckage of some may be left on earth. In His presence will be found complete and glorious the elect church for whom He died: that, and only that.
If God's object becomes our objective, and we serve in subjection to His word, we shall not live our lives in vain. We grant at once that God's object is high and beyond all our natural thoughts, and that therefore we often fall far short of it in our character, our behaviour, our worship, and our service for the name of the Lord. But though we fail, let us keep the right thing before us, rather than be deflected from it to something more according to our own thoughts, and therefore less according to the Word of God.
We remember hearing that in a certain shooting match a first-rate marksman put every one of his bullets on the bull's-eye of a target, and yet when his score was announced, it did not amount to a single point. It was-0. And why? Because he had been firing at the wrong target! Accept this incident as a parable, remembering that it is better to be a poor marksman firing at the right target than a first-class shot firing at the wrong one! Better serve what is the will of God for the moment, even imperfectly, than accomplish what is not His will with apparent efficiency and success.
Let us seek grace to have our lives and our service ordered in keeping with the calling of the church. And let us each remember that we have to give account of ourselves to God at the judgment seat of Christ.