Articles
Work We Ought To Do
The Kind of Work We Ought to Be Doing
"I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me." John 12 :32
All around us every day are friends and neighbors in spiritual difficulties. They may not recognize it, and we ourselves don’t pay attention to it as we should sometimes, but our only reason for being here is to see that and to be a blessing to them. The question is, how can WE do it? How can you and I really work to the salvation of souls? The answer is that we ourselves don’t have the solutions for these people! You and I cannot draw men. In the passage above, Jesus declares that ALL men will be drawn to Him by his being lifted up on the cross.
We look around at our neighbors in sympathy. But that does not draw men to Christ! We genuinely love them. But that is not the solution either. If sympathy and love is all that human beings need, then the Cross of Christ is an empty symbol; there was no real need for it. What the world needs is not "a little bit of love," but a surgical operation! A great danger in our day is that we offer our neighbors good-natured and superficial religion, when they really need to bow down at the cross!
“When you are face to face with a soul in difficulty spiritually, remind yourself of Jesus Christ on the Cross. If that soul can get to God on any other line, then the Cross of Jesus Christ is unnecessary. If you can help others by your sympathy or understanding, you are a traitor to Jesus Christ. You have to keep your soul rightly related to God and pour out for others on His line, not pour out on the human line and ignore God.” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest).
Our usefulness to God depends only on our relationship to Jesus Christ and His cross. The one thing we have to do is to exhibit Jesus Christ crucified, to lift Him up all the time. (“I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified”). Every effort that is not firmly grounded in the Cross of Jesus will eventually lead astray.
Our mission as the people of God is to help men and women to see their need for a Savior – that is, to see their sin - and to reveal Jesus as Savior by the Cross! Consequently we cannot just be charming, make beautiful discourses, or give a good-natured, easy-going pat on the back. We have to be seriously “surgical”. We have to use the Scriptures to bring conviction of sin straight home – not in arrogance and self-righteousness, but with an attitude of humility, selflessness, and meekness. We offer no solution of our own, no earthly organization or program, no “self-help”, pop psychology fix, but the way of the cross – the way of sacrifice, of suffering, of obedience by faith! That is what will draw men to Him, and that is what will save them!
Larry Walker, adapted from Oswald Chambers, “My Utmost for His Highest”
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