A sound workman - Chambers, Oswald

Do your utmost to let god see that you at least are a sound workman, with no need to be ashamed of the way you handle the word of the truth. 2 Timotheus 2:15 (moffatt)

This advice of the apostles puts a sacredness on work that nothing else does. As workers, remember that we have to be approved unto god, not logical in our interpretation of the facts of revelation or the facts of life. Rev- elation transcends reason and confuses logic.

There is no royal road to becoming a worker for god. The only way is to let god in his mighty providence lift the life by a great tide, or break it from its moorings in some storm, and in one way or another get the life out to sea in reckless abandon to god. When once gods purpose is begun he seems to put his hand on the life and uproot and detach it in every way, and there is darkness and mystery and very often kicking. We can be impertinent to gods providence the moment we choose; there is no punishment, we have simply chosen not to be workers for god in that particular. We say, let me get back to the duck pond, to its limitations, where all is so simple and placid and easy to understand. We may go back to our duck pond and be a success there, but god wants to launch us out into the ocean. Numbers have come within sight of an understanding of the great doctrines and have stopped short. There is no pioneer but god into the meaning of his great doctrines.

Never make an experience produced by your faithfulness to god the ground of your christian teaching, but find in your personal experience the assurance of your relation to the christian doctrine you have to teach. It is always easier to be a hand-to- mouth evangelist than to be a worker for god rightly expounding the evangel to the saints. The value to god of one man or woman right out in supreme sanctification is incalculable.

The value of a life can only be estimated by its spiritual relation- ship to god. Every branch that beareth fruit, he cleanseth it, that it may bear more fruit (RV). Do you feel the knife? If so, that is a sign that you are bearing fruit. The greatest service we can render god is to fulfill our spiritual destiny. It is the despised crowd god is counting on, insignificant but holy.