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Personal Work Brethren, we can take this old world for Christ any time you are ready! When God's people become vitally concerned about winning souls, God becomes vitally interested in seeing them succeed. There is no more urgent need in the church today than for Christians who can and will talk to people about their souls need and about the Christ of the gospel who satisfies that need. The church as a body has a work to do. Even this is impossible without various individuals doing their part. The group activity of the church necessarily involves arrangements for the accomplishment of certain aims. Yet, the action of the church as a group does not rule out the duty of individual Christians to act in the matter of evangelism. There are some duties we have, not just because we are part of a group, but because of our personal relationship to God. Upon every one who has learned, the Lord has placed the responsibility of telling others what he has learned. When to the apostles He said, "Teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you," the command to "go" was passed on to those who should obey the gospel. From that moment it has been the responsibility of the baptized disciple to follow that command. The vast majority of Christians have never dreamed that the command is personal, individual to every child of God; that it is his responsibility to go into his own personal world and declare the soul-saving message of the gospel to every creature. It is out of this misconception that the popular but utterly unscruptural phrase, has been coined, "If we can't go, we can send someone in our place." But we are never told to "either to go or to send." We are commanded to do one thing only, and that is to GO. That command can't be obeyed by proxy; it can be obeyed only in person. This lays upon the heart of every Christian the sublime obligation to serve God as an individual herald on the gospel within his own personal world. All may not become as efficient as some others, but each can do personal work in his own way and in his own world. Let the one who excuses himself reflect upon Peter, the fisherman, who, after three years with the master cursed and swore, indicating that such may have been habitual with him before Jesus callecd him; yet he became a great rock and power in the kingdom of Christ. likewise let him remember that under Jesus' teaching and guidance, John, "the son of thunder," became the great apostle who so often said, "love one another," or let him consider Paul, the persecuting Pharisee, who under that same divine guidance, became the powerful preacher and compassionate soul-winner for the Master. If the Lord could so mold and use them, He can mold and use every one in some place today, though that one be small and obscure in his own sight. With God as the Great Master Potter, all things are possible. The urgent need of the hour is for men who will say, "Here am I send me." "The night is far spent and the day is at hand," let us be about our Masters business. If you really want to go to heaven, then take someone with you. - Randall Elrod |