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Personal Work One of the great needs in the church today is personal work. Little of the burning passion for men's souls as seen in Jesus and the early Christians is to be found among Christians today. In most churches there are only a few that do personal work. Every concerned Christian wants the church to grow both spiritually and numerically. But, it seems to me that not many are willing to do anything about it. They want someone else to do the work. If someone else can do your personal work for you, then they can go to heaven for you. I don't believe that many realize the seriousness of being unfaithful to the commands of the Lord. There is more to Christianity than being faithful in attendance. By personal work, most think of visiting the sick, providing for our families, household chores, helping the needy, comforting the distressed etc. That is true, that is personal work, but so is personal evangelism also. "Personal" means that which is done by the individual rather than the group. There are some duties we have, not just because we are part of a group, but because of our personal relationship to God. The need to teach the Word to others is seen by the value God places upon a soul (Matthew 16:26). Just think of the value of all the land and buildings in the world and add them together until they stagger the imagination! Yet one soul is of far greater value than all these. Nothing is to compare in grandeur and priceless value with that which has been created in the image of God - the soul of man. When we realize the true value of the soul, then we will be interested in saving our own soul as well as the souls of others. Why are we not growing like they did in the first century? We have better means of transportation and communication than they had. We are just not using them for the glory of God. We are so busy with the things of this world that we don't take time t o do the Lord's work. We lack commitment. Read the book of Nehemiah when the Israelites return from captivity to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem. "What these people did was to totally commit themselves to God. But the commitment did not sustain itself in future generations. Brethren, if that does not frighten us what will? We can definitely see such a failure in commitment right now in this generation. We have become too busy with our hobbies, as well as with our work, with our friends, and with many other selfish pleasures, and have no time left or set aside to do the Lord's work. Can't we see that what makes the situation ever worse is that we are communicating what we PRACTICE, and not what we profess? It is impossible to communicate values that we can only speak of as being important but never put into use. - Randall Elrod
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