An Active Life of Service.

The third life is a life of active service, of aggressive earnestness in winning men. I say aggressive.  That word does not mean noise and dust, shuffling of feet, and bustling confusion.  It means rather the steady, steady movement of the sun which noiselessly, dustlessly, moves onward, hour after hour, day in and day out, regardless of any storms, or disturbances.  It means the quiet, peaceful, but resistless uninterrupted movement of the moon rising night after night, and going through its circle of action.  Earnestness means the burning of the inner spirit.  Its fires dim not, for they are fed continually from secret sources.

This third life is spoken of directly:  “Go ye and make disciples.”  The going is to be continued until folks farthest away have heard.  Some people are bounded by the horizon of the town where they live, some by the particular church to which they belong, some the denomination, some the state, or even the nation.  Jesus fixes the horizon of His follower as that of the world.  Jesus was visionary.  He talked about all nations, a race, a world.

All are to go.  They are to go to all.  Some may be made wholly free, by arrangement with their fellow-followers, to give their full strength and time to the direct going and telling.  These are highly favored in privilege.  Some of these may go to deserted darkened places in the home land.  Some may go to the city slum, which in its dire need is of close kin to the foreign-mission land.  These are yet more highly favored in privilege.

Some may go to those far distant lands where Jesus is not known, where the need of Him is so pathetically great.  These are the most highly favored in the privilege of service accorded them.  Many others have been left free of the necessity of earning bread and home and clothing and so have a rare opportunity of devoting themselves to the going, as the Spirit of Jesus guides.  Many are given the talent to earn easily, and so, if they will, may give much strength to service.

The great majority everywhere and always are absorbed for most of the waking hours of the day in earning something to eat, and something to wear, and somewhere to sleep.  Yet where there is the warm touch with Jesus there will come the yearning for purity, and the life of service.  With these as with all there may be the service, strong and sweetly fragrant.  There is always some bit of spare time, with planning, that can be used in direct service in church, or school, or mission.  And the secret life of prayer will give a steadiness that will guard against the over-use of one’s strength.

There can be a personal going to some in words tactfully spoken.  There is the life of sweet purity and gentle patience always so winsome, that speaks all the time in musical tones to one’s circle.  There is an enormous, unconscious aggressiveness about such a life.  Then there can be the going through gold.  And the entire planet can be brought under one’s thumb of influence through the strangely simple power of prayer.